Run in Such A Way As To Get The Prize (1 Cor 9:24)

Here we go again

2012-01-24T07:17:00.002-06:00

Many of you may remember that a few years ago I did my first Ultramarathon at the Free State Trail Ultra. I did the 40 mile version and, aside from the massive amounts of mud, I truly loved it. I've done a few short races over the past year but my training has been less than stellar. I was still able to log about 1500 miles in 2011 but that's not nearly as much as I was hoping for. I ran a couple of 5k's in 2011 along with the Dam to Dam 20k, but that was it. I was....let's just call it less than inspired.

I have seen the posting on Facebook from the KC Trail Nerds go up and knew I needed to try my hand again at this race. Fortunately for me the company that I work for is really starting to embrace the importance of a healthy diet and exercise and includes race entry into our Wellness reimbursement plan. We bought a treadmill last year and used the reimbursement for that and with no big purchases planned I knew that this was an easy fit. So again starts my training for my next ultra. I'll hopefully, time willing, be posting more often on my training and how things are going. Stay tuned.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Back into it!!!

2011-11-23T13:32:00.002-06:00

Coming up in a few days is one of my favorite times of the the year. Thanksgiving!!! It's not just about the food but also getting to go home and see all of my family. Even though we keep close by phone, email, Facebook and getting to see each other every few weeks I still miss them horribly. I especially miss my nephews. I would love to be closer and for them and my girls to grow up really close, but logistically it's not possible at the moment. Who knows if it will ever be, but that's what makes the holidays so special. For those of you reading this that are far away from your family, enjoy the time that you have with them.

On the running front things have been getting much better recently. I am finally back to being excited to run. For a while I was in a funk and couldn't shake it. I was getting out on the trails and road every day or two but it seemed more like a chore than a passion like it has been for the better part of 3 years. I haven't had anything to train for but I made my mind up to get ready for a race. I'm not going to tell which race just yet, but rest assured it is going to be awesome. Here's a little hint :)

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to get back into things and looked through my past couple years of races. I know that I can keep improving I just have to do the work. With the cool, short days I am forced to do more indoors training than I would like but at least I have a nice treadmill that I can put a lot of miles on.

I did a few 6-8 mile runs that felt great. I had very little soreness and was trying to stay well hydrated as I think that is part of the reason for some bad runs lately. On Sunday I told my wife that I wanted to get a nice long run in which came with no objections as the girls were down for a nap. My intention was to go 10 and call it good. I put on one of my favorite 80's movies, Stripes, and just started running. I went with my Brooks Adrenaline ASR 8's to have a little cushion during the run. Everything just seemed to click. I took some food with me (trail mix, banana chips and a banana) and tried to follow a 300 calorie per hour philosophy. I didn't measure everything out but I'm pretty sure I was close on the number of calories that I took in. I felt really good.

Before I realized it my movie was over and I looked down at the timer on the treadmill that said "1:40" and 11 miles. WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED??? I literally zoned out for almost an hour and 40 minutes and I felt fine. At that moment I decided that I needed to keep going until I couldn't go anymore or it got too late. I paused the TM, put on "The Big Bang Theory" (another favorite) and just kept plugging away. I looked at the clock on the TV and decided at 2 hours 30 minutes I was going to stop as it was getting too late. I made a really good push at the end and finished with 16.3 miles. Not bad for not having run more than 10 in almost 5 months ;) I wasn't cramped, I wasn't tired, I was just very satisfied.

The next day I was anticipating waking up and not being able to move. I got out of bed and felt nothing. No aches or pains. It was almost like I hadn't run the day before. I went to work, sat all day, got home and thought I should probably take full advantage of the situation. I jumped back on the TM wearing my New Balance 101's for the first 2 miles and thought that I should do some barefoot training. Threw the shoes off and went for another 3 miles. I am finally back and it feels great.

Stay tuned for more info on my next race. I hope that you have a great holiday season and take full advantage of this time with family. Stay safe and have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Tough Seasons

2011-11-01T15:00:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted here in a long time and there is a reason. Everyone goes through those "seasons" in life where you just can't find the time to participate in the things that you love. I am in one of those "seasons" right now.

I switched jobs in Feb. 2011. It is a far better situation for me to be working where I work now, but my previous employer had a gym and shower so I could run/workout in the mornings or over lunch and have my evenings to spend with my family. Because the situation was so bad at my previous job it was a no brainer to get out when I had the opportunity. The one thing that I didn't think about though was how it was going to affect my workouts. I know that you should never base a career change on how it is going to affect your working out but with kids that are in so many things it really does hinder things a bit.

I have been trying to stay active but when you get home at 5:00, get supper made, hang out with my kids, and put them to bed I literally have about 2 hours to just relax with my wife or do stuff around the house. That leaves me all of 10 minutes to actually run and by that time I'm exhausted and need to go to bed.

I've been trying to get out right away after supper and run shorter but for someone that is trying to train for another ultra it really doesn't help. I'm trying to stay positive but I feel like I've put on weight and it stresses me out. I have put on about 10-15 lbs (I don't like to weigh myself to know exactly) but I want those days of 15-20 mile runs. UGH!!!! It's really depressing.

To make matters worse, we are coming in to the worst running season of the year. Tonight I am going to try and get one last trail run in before the weather goes. We are in for snow tomorrow and it probably won't let up for the next 5 months. So wish me luck.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

A letter to all of my cyclist friends

2011-07-20T08:59:00.004-05:00

This morning I decided to go on a different route than I normally run. I am the type of person that needs variety in my runs. Whether it be speed work, hill repeats, long runs, trail runs, treadmill, etc. I decided to go on what most people consider to be a bike trail. The Des Moines area has a very nice trail system for paved biking trails. It is primarily used for biking, but because of the straight line with no hills it does attract runners and walkers as well.

I have run this trail many times. It is gorgeous this time of year because the North side of the trail is open fields of corn or beans and the South side of the trail is a highway. There is always a very nice, but sometimes tough, breeze that goes through and helps to keep you cool. I went out this morning at around 5:00 AM. I took my headlamp, as I always do on my early morning runs, for two reasons: 1) For my own safety to be able to see where I am going 2) So that others that may be using the trail at the same time will be able to see me. I feel that this is a very nice courtesy as I have encountered people who are not so courteous.

I was about 2 miles in when I met my first group of cyclists. Now, if you know me you know that I am a HUGE fan of Brooks Running, their shoes, clothes and their motto of "Run Happy". I love this motto because sometimes even though you are having a terrible run it is important to "Run Happy" because some day you may not be able to. As I do everytime I am out, be it on the highway or trails, I always waive or say hello or say good morning to everyone. I feel that this is a nice way to acknowledge the other person and in some cases make them realize that I am not a threat.

Since it was dark and they wouldn't be able to see a waive, I extended the "Good morning" to this group. There response? "...". Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I thought to myself, "OK, maybe they were just training really hard and were out of breath". Oh how wrong I was. The next group comes up. This was a group of 4 people so I thought I would get one person to give me a simple greeting. Again I used the "Good Morning" and got no response. This went on for the next 5 more groups and individuals totaling probably 20 people before I got my first, "hey". How is this possible? Iowans are supposed to be extremly friendly, kind and courteous. How can I come in contact with 20+ people before I get 1 person to say anything to me?

I was out for a little over 1 hour and "met" nearly 40 people and got 2 people to even acknowledge me. 2!!!!! I even had one group of 3 that was so hell bent on riding directly next to each other that they were three wide on the trail and almost ran into me (even though I was on the shoulder of the trail). One guy though at the end of my run came riding up behind me, said "On your left" and even had a conversation with me. We talked briefly how nice the weather was, how great it was to be outside and gave the other person the "Have a great rest of your ride/Have a great rest of your run". This was the last person that I came in contact with and the whole situation ruined what was supposed to be a great run for me.

Now, to my plea to all cyclists out there. I know a lot of you. I have a lot of friends who are avid cyclists and tri-athletes. I know that as cycling becomes more and more popular there are a lot more people that are riding/training on the road and on the trails. I am not a biker. I probably never will be. I enjoy riding a bike, but wouldn't consider it as my favorite form of exercise or recreation. But just as you encourage motorists to "Share the Road", I am begging you to just be nice to other people. I understand that not everyone is as happy as I am to be outside running or exercising, but how difficult is it to simply say "hello" or "hey" during an exhale. Just because your bike costs more than my house payment for 2 months doesn't mean that I don't have just as much of a right to be on this trail. Just because you wear spandex to make you more aerodynamic and I just wear shorts and shoes doesn't mean that you are more of a priviledged athlete than I am (granted most of you probably are). Just because you can go twice as fast as me doesn't mean that you have to zip past me at top speed. Don't think that you own the trail or the road. I train just as hard as a lot of you do and I always say hello or waive at everyone that I meet.

I am not trying to come across as some pompous person, I am pleading you to just be a nice person. I realize that some people get really focused and are "in the zone", but if you see someone on the trail ahead of you, going the same direction, give them a heads up that you are behind them. If you see someone coming toward you, give a simple "hey". Who knows, that person may be having one of the worst days of their life and that simple act may prop up their spirit (or they also could be the person writing this blog).

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Beautiful Morning for a run

2011-07-18T07:40:00.004-05:00

Recently I started a new position with a new company which has...let's just say...set my training back a bit. While I love the company that I now work for I miss a lot of my friends that I used to run with and most certainly my mid-day run. The company that I used to work for had a great workout facility with showers. I am not as lucky with my current employer and that has caused me to shift my runs around a bit. Where I used to run in the middle of the day, shower, go back to work and "be home" when I went home, I am now forced to run at nights. 2 problems with this though.
1) It is hotter later in the day.
2) It forces me to give up some family time.

I don't get to spend a lot of time with my kids and my wife so when I get home, I really want to be around for them. In shifting of my schedule I do have to spend some mornings running which means getting up REALLY early. I'm fine getting up early, but 3:30 AM is too freaking early. This morning though, I didn't mind getting out because I knew the temps were going to be in the 100's after work and I really didn't want to run in that.

3:30 came, my alarm went off and I hit the snooze a few times. I finally rolled out of bed around 4:00, made some coffee, got dressed, had a bite to eat and headed outside. I slowly realized that the crazy humidity was not going to mix well with my total body soreness from the weekend of trimming trees, but I was up so I needed to run regardless.

I know that most people think that I'm crazy, but if you ever have the opportunity to run at 4:30 in the morning, take it. You don't realize how calm the world is until you get out when there is no traffic, no movement in the trees and virtually no noise. It is absolutely beautiful. Period. In the mindset of safety, I do wear a headlamp with 3 LED lights that seem to light the road pretty well, but I find myself turning it off just to look up and see the stars of a cloudless sky. It is truly breathtaking.

Now this morning, my run didn't go quite as planned. I think that the humidity and "workout" from the tree extravaganza got the best of me. I had planned on doing 10 miles but ended up with 8. My pace was relaxed, I walked the major hills (out of advice from major ultrarunners), hydrated well, ate a granola bar but today just wasn't my day. Oh well. Just being outside running in the beautifulness that God created made it totally worth it.

I did decide this weekend that I really do need to pick a race. I've been saying this for months now but I need to have something to train for. I know for a fact that in November I am running the R.C.C. Run The Woods (date not confirmed) but I am really contemplating on doing the 12 Hour Equalizer put on by the Cranky Gnomes Athletic Club and still throwing around the idea of doing the 100K (62 miles) version of the Free State Trail Ultra in Lawrence, KS in April 2012 and possibly dipping my toe into a 100 miler in Fall of 2012. Who knows, we'll have to see.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Switch up your routine to see lots of improvements

2011-07-11T07:26:00.004-05:00

As most runners know, we are a group that is very strict on routine. Most people have their specific long run days, a lot of people have their speed work and hill days, we wear our "lucky clothes" to races, we eat the same things before each race or run, we take specific calculated days off, we have specific playlists on our music player for certain runs, etc. There are times though when it's good to make a change. It really can benefit you.

I am a person that follows trends in the running world. I love gadgets. Even though I don't own a lot of them, by a lot of peoples standards, I love them. Computers, phones, iPhones/iPod/iPads, watches, GPS's. You name it. I probably own one or know something about it. With all of the technology around us most people have either a cell phone or iPod (or equivalent) that we take with us on runs. Recently when I ran in the 20k Dam To Dam I decided not to take my iPod with me. I really hadn't been training with it so I didn't want to mess up my routine. I noticed though that almost everyone had something in their ears. I don't know why this shocked me but it really did. The friend that I was running with had his and it almost annoyed me. Even though we had decided ahead of time that we would run together he said that he would keep it at a low enough volume that we could still have a conversation. Is this really what we've come to? We become so accustomed to having this constant distraction that we have to have it on even when we are having a conversation?

I have posted before that there have been times when I've forgotten to charge my iPod or my watch and thought the world could potentially end during my run. Come to find out you actually end up using more of your senses to enjoy the run. I've known people that will flat out cancel a run because their iPod battery is too low just can't imagine running without it. I've driven past 2 people, that I can assume were a couple, that both had theirs with them. I've even seen a guy during a race that was wearing 2 iPods (one on each arm) and when asked why he had 2 explained that it was in case the battery ran out on his first. Huh???

My wife recently realized though how nice it is though to get out and enjoy her run when she doesn't have something on her ears (she hates earbuds so I can't say in her ears). Once again, my iPod wasn't charged and she doesn't have a running case for her iPod Touch. She knew that she wanted to go for a run so she headed out without anything. She came back a little different. She looked more relaxed and said that she actually enjoyed not having it and hasn't run with one since.

Now, don't label me as a hypocrite because I can certainly understand the psychological effects of having the music in your ears. From time to time I do run with mine. These are the days when I've had a bad day and need to have a little heavy metal in my ears or running in an area that I know I won't get attacked by a dog or run down by a car. The majority of the time though I don't take it with me (primarily for safety reasons due to where I run). Plus, a lot more USATF races are "banning" the use of music players or disqualifying runners who are caught with one because of the safety problems that can arise. A lot of times disqualifications are empty threats that never amount to anything, but still a possibility none the less.

As you prep for your next race, run, walk, jog or whatever you do, consider leaving breaking your routine. Leave the music turned off or leave all technology at home. Strip down the stuff that you take with you. The first couple of times you may find it much more difficult because you are used to having it with you, but try it. You may end up enjoying it a lot more.

On my running front, things are starting to pick up again. I obviously need to get more long runs in, but with more and more things invading our weekends it is getting much more difficult. The weather hasn't made it easy either with either heat advisories or severe thunderstorms (welcome to weather in the Mid-West). It has been quite challenging but I continue to stay focused on training for another ultra later this year or next spring. More to come on that in the future. Until next time.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

What a difference the trails make

2011-06-27T05:22:00.006-05:00

Running can hurt. Running can be repetitive. Some times running can be boring. Sometimes you get stuck in a rut in running and can't seem to get out. I have been there probably hundreds of times. But sometimes one run can change your entire outlook on why you continue to put one foot in front of the other.

I took nearly a week off from the run (we were team leads at our awesome Vacation Bible School) and decided that I was going to get out for a run on Saturday. The missus and the kiddies were going to be out of town and I had planned on hanging out with a friend later that evening, so I decided that this may be my chance to get out to hit the trails. I have been in a little bit of a funk lately because I have been running the same routes or spending too much time on the treadmill because of our crazy schedule. I love running on the trails and I didn't care how much it had rained that morning, I was going to do it and nothing was going to stop me.

When it comes to running, I am a planner. I always carry my water bottle, ID (make your own at RoadID), my Garmin 205 (so I can know time and distance) and the appropriate shoes for the condition. Today I made sure that I had all of my stuff ready to go, but made one TINY little error in preparation....I forgot to charge my watch. I didn't realize it until I turned it on and it's flashing "LOW BATTERY". Well that just sucks because I was kind of on a time crunch. Once my foot hit that single track though the time left my brain. I could be out there for hours and wouldn't really care. I realize that the trails that I run on are nothing compared to the mountains in Colorado, running in Yellowstone, or even some of the trails in Texas, but this is where my mind and heart come alive. It is freeing not having music in your ears, a watch telling you your time and pace or running on a machine while you watch TV. I've said numerous times that I am not fast. I have run dozens of 5k's, 10k's, a couple of marathons and an ultra, and my times are not what most runners would consider "impressive" but that's not what I am running for. I realized on Saturday (and several times in the past) that I am going to have some really great runs but I am also going to have some really crappy runs (take this morning for example). I just have to keep moving forward. I can't dwell on the runs of the past but look forward to the next time I can lace up my shoes.

Here some of the scenes from where I was running on Saturday.

It makes me realize too that if you are in a rut, in life or in physical activity, try something new or different. Leave the cell phone in the car, take the ear buds out of your ears and get off the road (you can decide if that is metaphoric) and see where your life can go. We have so many distractions in our lives that we sometimes forget how simplicity can help you to overcome most everyday obstacles. Make today a great day.

Stay strong, Run long,

Tha Messenjah

Pursuit of my Passon

2011-06-11T07:52:00.001-05:00

I’m not famous. Probably will never be. Most people don’t know me, but if you ask the people that have ever met me most refer to me as “that crazy running guy”. I love running more than most people love their pets. 90% of my favorite websites or books have something to do with running. I have read Dean Karnazes’ “Ultra-Marathon Man” book 5 times. My internet history browser looks like I am doing research projects for the editor of Runner’s World. I keep every magazine that I have ever bought just because “there’s this one article that I may use sometime”. I have the elevation maps of Leadville, HardRock and Western States hanging on my cube wall. Running is where I can get out of my head and relax. I look forward to my 20 mile runs as a way to get outside and enjoy the world that God has created. But if you met me today you wouldn’t know that my story isn’t much different from most other people when they go off to college and that’s where the pursuit of my purpose began.

When we go to college, we’re all warned of the "Freshman 15" with the new found freedom of late night pizza calls and the discovery of “adult beverages”. I was no exception to that rule. In high school, I was an “athlete”. I put athlete in quotes because to this day I don’t consider my high school history of athletics to be anything to brag about. Sports have never come easy to me. I was always a “husky” kid. I often refer to my time playing football as “Yeah, I played football. I was an End, a Guard and a Tackle. I sat at the end of the bench, guarded the water and tackled anyone that came near it”. I went out for football, basketball, baseball and golf every year but was very lucky if I played…EVER. I went out for sports for the social aspect. All of my friends played, and most of them were very good. Much like most high school kids, I just wanted to be lumped into the category of athlete instead of “Band Dork” (which I was). Even back then I was bigger than most kids tipping the scale at 180 lbs and with overweight parents, aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc I knew that I was doomed.

I went to college determined not to gain the “Freshman 15” that everyone was fated for. I enjoyed playing basketball so my friend and I decided that we would play basketball every day. Well, you know how that story goes. Classes get in the way, social life gets in the way, girlfriend gets in the way, yada yada yada. Needless to say it didn’t really pan out and the weight came on.

As life moves so fast you never really stop to look at yourself in the mirror and realize how much weight you are really gaining. When I needed new clothes, I went and bought them. I didn’t really pay much attention to the sizes. I just bought what fit. Nobody said anything to me. I never went to the doctor because I rarely got sick (not sure how that happened). My weight never really got brought up as a concern. As I was preparing for my wedding I decided to lose some weight. I knew that I had some to lose so I started working out sporadically. I played racquetball, jumped on the elliptical or the bike every once in a while and did notice that I was losing some weight. A few months later I got married and BOOM the weight went right back on…plus some. I was fat, depressed, stressed out about school, newly married, had no motivation to do anything and genuinely hated life. I was your typical stress eater and found comfort in food. I had no purpose for my life. I couldn’t walk without getting tired, couldn’t sleep, my back and knees hurt all of the time and didn’t want to be in pain any longer. I contemplated suicide on numerous occasions because there wasn’t really a point in sticking around. I was fat. No one would care if I was gone. But I did find that if I made fun of how fat I was I could get a laugh out of people and no one could tell what I was going through inside.

In 2004 I got a job working for an insurance company as my first big time, non-college job. I went into the job knowing absolutely nothing about insurance. The first 3 months were probably the most stressful months of my life. With a new job comes new stress from learning the industry, new people to impress, new occasions to celebrate, office food days and late nights at the local watering holes. I have a fun-loving personality and have been known as a person that likes to be recognized for doing goofy things. If you had a food challenge for me and it would get a laugh out of people or some attention, I would do it. I was the person that could be dared to drink a 2-liter bottle of pop as fast as possible and would do it without even thinking. Endless pancakes at IHOP, no problem, let’s break the record. You want me to eat a large pizza by myself, SURE. Box of macaroni & cheese in the cupboard? That sounds like a great snack. Food was AMAZING and being fat is where I found my stardom amongst my peers. Maybe this was my purpose?

In the Fall of 2004 came the Iowa State Fair and all of the incredibly healthy food that’s being served (insert sarcasm here). My wife’s family has a long standing tradition of camping during the fair so it isn’t uncommon for us to go 3 or 4 times each year. This year we went 4 times and I ate like a king every time. My favorite food? Turkey legs. They are incredible and you feel like a caveman walking around with meat juice dripping from your chin. We went into the fair on the last day knowing that this would be our last chance for a year to eat our favorite foods and today was not going to disappoint. The following list is not a menu from the entire fair, this is what I ate during one day:

2 Turkey legs – 1400 calories and 60 grams of fat (each)
Funnel Cake – 800 calories, 44g fat
Corn Dog – 460 calories, 19g fat
Fried Twinkie – 361 calories, 28g fat
Gyro – 680 calories, 40g fat
Giant pickle – 32 calories
2 Lemonades – 210 calories (each)
6 pack of beer

For a grand total (not including beer) of 5500 calories and 251g of fat. Most people shouldn’t eat that in a week at the fair, but I did it in one day. It was EPIC!!!

When we went back to our apartment I felt like garbage, but was proud of my accomplishment. My wife’s grandparents decided to stop over before heading home. After sitting down and chatting for a while, her grandmother wanted to snap a picture with her new digital camera. Now, I must clarify this. I was a journalism major in college and loved to take pictures, but hated to be in them. She snapped the picture and said “Oh, you guys look so cute. Here take a look.” Those words will haunt me for the rest of my life. It had probably been a year or better since I had seen myself in a picture. I looked at it and didn’t even recognize the man standing next to this beautiful lady. Who was that??? I was so embarrassed of what I looked like. I knew something had to change.

Completely humiliated I went to work the next day knowing there would a chance I could die before I hit 30. That reaction may have been a little dramatic but too real none-the-less. I did some research and found a diet book that I wanted to try. It wasn’t some fad or anything like that, it just broke out the calories, fat and carbs of everything you could ever eat and helped to create a plan to lose weight. I told my wife of my intention and I don’t think I have ever seen her happier. I cut my caloric intake down from almost 4,000 calories (on a light day) to 1,500. Before I got the book I would eat 3-4 eggs every morning, 120-160 ounces of regular Mt. Dew every day, 2-3 slices of pizza for lunch, homemade chicken wings for supper and wash it down with a 6’r of beer. I finally had a plan and I was sticking to it. Without having a scale, and not wanting to buy one, I went to the doctor to get a check up. I hadn’t been to the doctor in almost 5 years so this was a little nerve racking. When he came in with the results of my blood work and my chart, his face didn’t look good. He read the numbers and said that I was 295 lbs, pre-diabetic, my blood pressure was off the charts and had a BMI at almost 40. Keep in mind that this appointment was probably a week after I changed my eating habits so I had already lost some weight. If you’re calculating, that’s nearly 120 lbs in 6 years (most of that was in college). When I went home I started to look at my clothes. I had purchased pants the week before. Size 44. My 2XL shirts were a little tight. The soles of my shoes were caving on the outside. What…had…I….done???

After about a week of my new diet, my wife said “let’s go for a run”. We had a ½ mile track near our apartment and she would go run there quite often. I resisted quite a bit because growing up I HATED to run. Why run when you can drive a car or a bike. But I threw on some old shoes and went out with her. I went half way around the ½ mile track (for you math majors that is ¼ mile) and threw up…VIOLENTLY. I decided that this running thing was stupid and I wasn’t ever going to do it again. A couple of days later, my wife said “let’s try it again.” As I am such a gentleman, I decided to give it another chance since she was so cute and convincing. This time, I made it one lap and thought “hey, this isn’t so bad after all. Let’s do another lap” and that was when the bug hit me. I decided that I was going to sign up for a 5K. I don’t know if I had run 3.1 miles collectively over the previous 6 years let alone training to do it in one shot. I was going to train for it and make the most of it. As I started to run more often something magical happened, my clothes were getting loser. I wasn’t so tired all of the time. I wasn’t depressed like I had been for years. I could walk up and down stairs without breathing heavy. I was sleeping better. Maybe these crazy runners had something here.

I started running over lunch breaks, at nights, on weekends. It consumed my life and hasn’t stopped since. People began to see a change in my life and not just on the physical side. I am truly happy and it shows. My weight loss was simple. Don’t eat as much and exercise. There have been no fad diets, no lipo, and no fancy exercise machine (other than my treadmill in my basement). I have been able to keep off about 90 lbs and have never felt better in all of my life. I have created training plans and successfully coached 20 different people to train and run 5k’s to marathons. I, myself, have run an Ultra-Marathon, ran 80 miles of a 300+ mile relay across Iowa raising money for an orphanage in South Africa, ran 2 marathons, five 20k’s, and a ridiculous amount of 10 and 5k’s. I love running so much that I have started a running clubs at work that encourages people of all abilities to run and have dipped my toes into the realm of race director creating the Run for the Pines Relay across Iowa. I believe that what running has done for me is finally given me that purpose that I was looking for and couldn’t find sitting on my couch. It has taught me that I am a child of God, a husband, a father, a coach and most certainly a runner.

Stay Stong, Run Long,

Tha Messenjah

What I've been up to lately

2011-05-26T16:03:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone out there in the blogosphere,
I know that it has been some time since I have blogged last. I am terrible at keeping up with this thing. First off, I haven't stopped running. Maybe stepped back a bit. With a year of more than 2,000 miles you have to take some time to recover a bit and get your fire back. I recently switched jobs and that has thrown a huge wrench into the spokes. When I say wrench, I am talking one of those big ones that you see in the news on those mining rigs. I was running so well with my peeps at my last job and really took that for granted. I had a set time and day that I would run. They kept my speed up and pushed me to my limits. Now, I don't have that. I work with a lot of sedentary people. Although all of them are super awesome, none of them show the love for running that I do. A lot are recreational exercisers but can't believe that people actually run more than 26.2. Most think that I need my head examined for even considering it :)

I did buy a dreadmill and it is an awesome one but there is nothing like being outside, but I get really tired of the same route all of the time. My long route always starts of with about 7 miles of rolling hills with about 1000 ft climbs. That may not seem like a lot to a lot of these ultra guys, but here in the humidity and wind in the Mid-West, that SUCKS!!!! Then to make matters worse, I have to turn around and end with those same 7 miles worth of hills. AAARGH!!!!

Not to be completely negative though. I am really excited where my life is. My new job rocks. So much better than the last 4 years that I spent doing. I loved a lot of the people there, but didn't like a lot of the people there. I feel like I actually matter at this place and it is a good feeling.

So to give you some clue as to where my runs are at. I am doing the Dam To Dam in a couple of weeks and going to ramp up training quite a bit to possibly pace a dude at the Leadville 100...which is going to be friggin' sweet...More to come on that...

Anyway, hope all is well out there in the world

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Barefoot Running

2010-12-07T15:50:00.005-06:00

For those of you who don't know (all one of you that read this), I have been doing this barefoot running thing now for about a year. I first started when we had a treadmill in our house over the winter of 2009-2010. I kind of actually started by accident. You see, I was adjusting the belt on the TM because it was making this horrible squealing sound before Mrs. Messenjah decided to go for a run on it. I had just gotten home from work and was still in my khakis, dress socks and dress shirt. As I was adjusting the belt I realized that it wasn't making the noise until someone got on it. As my wife was somewhere doing something else I didn't want to go up and get my shoes and I was only going to take a few strides anyway. I jumped on and started going. What the heck was going on? This actually felt kind of good. This is weird!!!

As you know, I am an uber-dork and ran upstairs to do some research. I found out that there was actually people around the world doing this crazy thing and I was hooked. I took the advice of many people that have posted on the subject and took it VERY slow. I started out with 1/2 mile, then over time a mile, then 2, then 3 and it kept going.

Now to clarify, I am one of those people that has primarily done my BF runs on the treadmill. I am kind of a weeny. I have done probably a dozen or so runs outside without shoes, but the primary source is on the TM.

I love it!!! Yes, I get the looks from people in the gym as I only run on the back treadmills. They are forced to walk behind and stare at the guy not wearing shoes while he is running. I have read peoples lips and read "What the f*** is he doing?" I have seen the looks (and I know it's not because of how hot I am because the good Lord knows that I'm not getting looks for that). My running buddies don't get it. I haven't converted completely because let's be honest, I love my running shoes.

People don't understand it but I am so much stronger and much more efficient of a runner than I have ever been. I know that it may be crazy but just think about it. You have an inch of cushion in the back of your shoe that forces you to hit your heel every time you take a stride. Most people when they hit with their cushioned heel have a straight leg out. Now think about this, have you ever played basketball, volleyball, jumped rope, jumped off of a retaining wall, etc? How do you land? With your knees bent. Landing with a locked/extended knee hurts and that is part of the reason we have bad knees, bad hips, bad backs, etc. Don't believe me? Watch someone who is a heel striker run. Most of the time it looks like this

If you are landing like that, it is working like a braking system and sends huge shock waves through your body and THAT is the reason why so many people say that running hurts. It took one run barefoot to make me realize that the way I ran was the reason why my knees hurt so much.

BF teaches you to run more on the ball of your foot and use your arch as a natural shock absorber. God created your foot to work that way. Shoe companies have been spiraling out of control to add more cushion, more support, more more more and it has made our feet and bodies weak. People all over the world run in very little shoe. The book "Born To Run" is about a tribe in Mexico where the people can drink beer all night, throw on some sandals that are basically made out of the rubber from tires and go out for 300 mile runs. Now, granted. You may be saying "I can't just go out and run 300 miles just by switching to BF running". True. You can't. But, if you do your homework you can learn to run relatively pain free by using some of their techniques.

Now this is not going to be for everyone. I am definitely not suggesting that. I use it as an additional training tool. It is like lifting weights or yoga. I don't like to do them, but they have huge benefits for running. We have our feet cooped up all day at work in shoes that are really uncomfortable. Wearing ultra cushioned running shoes have made the muscles, ligaments, & joints atrophy with inactivity. Why don't most people wear flip flops when walking around the fair? Because their feet hurt afterwards. That is caused by our feet not being worked out enough.

I know that this whole thing sounds crazy but there are proven reports that show the use of BF running as a training tool and incredibly help your endurance, speed, efficiency, comfort and on and on. Again, I am not advocating that everyone run a marathon barefoot. I don't think that I even want to. My threshold currently is about 8 miles without shoes. I still do my long runs in shoes. I still do my hill or speed repeats in shoes. But it can be so liberating letting your toes fly and running barefoot. It will strengthen your feet, your arches, your ankles, your calves, your Achilles, everything. Don't get me wrong though there will be some aches and pains associated with the switch initially, but most of those go away after the first few runs.

If you are considering it, PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!! I am including just a few places that you can check if you want to look into it more.

Barefoot Ted's Adventures - One of the premier authorities on everything barefoot

Runner's World Barefoot Forum - A great place to answer questions. Before posting questions though, read some of the question/responses that have already been asked. Most of the questions that you may have have already been asked.

Barefoot Running University

The Running Barefoot Site

Vibram Five Fingers - Yes, these are the "toe shoes" that you may see people wearing. If you have some money to drop and want to buy these they are great for transitioning outdoors if you are afraid of sticks, rocks, dog poo or other things

Or you can always just go to Google and type in "barefoot running" and see what you get. There are going to be some people that say it's bad, but most people believe in it. Until the last 30 years or so people did it all of the time :)

Enjoy and thanks for reading

Stay Strong, Run Long,

Tha Messenjah

Seeing God's Beauty on the Road

2010-10-19T15:03:00.004-05:00

I have been fairly absent from running for about the past 2 months. To give you a little detail, I was sick and all of a sudden I got hit with this NASTY pain in my foot during a 6 mile barefoot recovery run. If you know me, I am not one to go to the doctor. I don't like them. Don't get me wrong, I think that being a doctor is an incredibly honorable position and they help millions of people every day. They helped me recover from having a stroke at 17, but health care costs are way over-inflated and they always end up prescribing us stuff that our bodies end up becoming immune to and we end up getting sicker. I know, in this regard I may be a hippie but if I am sick I usually try to eat a little better or drink OJ and stuff with lots of vitamin c to build my immune system back up. I have dealt with sinus infections for years and come out of them just fine.

Anyway, I self diagnosed myself with a sore foot (trust me that's the medical term :D) and decided that I needed to take some time off. I have been running pretty much straight for 5 years. I have taken some breaks over the years such as post recovery from marathons or if I am too sick or hurt to run, but nothing as extended as this. Obviously this year my mileage and times have been vastly improved so it was probably time. I didn't want to get too flabby while resting so took on some biking, light lifting, examining the stair stepper and elliptical and just trying stuff that I haven't for a while. The entire time though I was grumpy and just wanting to get out and run with all of my friends. It really sucked.

After being out of commission for exactly a month I decided my foot felt better and it was time to get out and boy was that first run painful. I probably went out to fast and for too long, but no matter how painful it was it felt great. So, I have slowly been getting back into it and this Monday I went out for my longest run since I hurt myself and probably one of my greatest runs ever.

I decided I wanted to run from our house to a neighboring town and back. I have run this course a hundred times. It's just about 11 miles. Since I was going really early (5 AM) and is on back country roads I decided that in the interest of safety I wasn't going to take my iPod. Because I have run this route so many times it does get a little boring and I was nervous about being out and losing motivation to keep going. As I am doing my normal pre-run routine I realize that I forgot my Garmin at work. NOOOOOO. How am I ever going to do this with no technology?!?!?!?!? I loaded up my Camelbak with water, threw on my Brooks ASR 6's and headed out the door not knowing what to expect.

I'll be honest, the first few miles were very mentally taxing. Whole lots of nothing going on. Every once in a while a car would go past, but that was about it until I got into the neighboring town. Once I got into town the clouds started to break up. This was good and bad. Bad because it was now getting colder but good because the view was incredible.

Now, I'm 30 years old and have seen the stars, but for some reason that morning the stars far more beautiful than anything I have ever seen before. There were no street lights and I don't know if it was the time of the day or what, but WOW. It really got me thinking. There are people in this world that deny the existence of God and it made me want to have them there at that moment. How can you deny the existence of someone who created this beautiful thing that we live on. It is not possible that this world could have been some cosmic accident when you are thrown into a view like this. Each star was so bright and looked like each one was very carefully placed in it's particular spot. It was absolutely astounding. I found myself stopped a few times just staring.

I realize that I have seen the sky probably 10,000 times (calculate it out, I was probably 3 when I first realized the sky) but there was something about this morning. This run. It made me realize how beautiful this world really is. The world is filled with so much ugliness, but that morning where I was standing was the most beautiful spot in the world. Maybe it was the fact that I was low on calories. Maybe it was the fact that I was mentally shutting down. But that view is what got my spirits back up and helped me to finish that run. I was having a pretty stressful couple of days leading up to this, but the rest of my day I found myself thinking back to that sky. God made me get out that morning. God made me leave my Garmin at work. God didn't want me to take my iPod. God wanted me to get out and see His true beauty on the run.

Next time you are outside either in the early morning or in the middle of the day, take some time to look at the sky and just realize that it was all created for your enjoyment

Stay Strong, Run Long,
Tha Messenjah

Frustration

2010-09-08T11:39:00.005-05:00

I begin this blog today explaining that if this comes off as being a little harsh, it isn't meant to be. To give an update. I have been sick for nearly a month, sinus and chest cold, and have been nursing what appears to be a stress fracture in my left foot. I haven't gone to the doc but have been resting and doing some different workouts to try and keep most pressure off of it.

It happened a couple of weeks ago. I was on the treadmill, yes it appears that I get hurt every time on the treadmill, and was in the middle of a 6 miler while barefoot (don't blame the barefoot). I was going along fine really concentrating on how my feet were landing, answering questions why I was running barefoot, yada yada yada when all of a sudden it feels like my toe needed cracked. I stopped, cracked my big toe and went on. About 2 minutes later the pain became REALLY intense. Not wanting to risk anything I jumped off, showered off and went back to my desk. Throughout the rest of the day I kept feeling this crazy throbbing on the top of my foot. I knew this wasn't good. I tried to get up from my desk and it wasn't happening. So I did what every man does when they get injured, I looked up my symptoms on WebMD. All signs pointed to SF. In my quest for more knowledge, and to support my denial, I went searching everywhere I could to find any info that would rule out the SF but to no avail. I talked to a few people and they concurred my initial diagnosis. UGH!!!! Now you understand my frustration.

Like I said, I have taken a couple of weeks to recoup and really been monitoring my activity level as not to overdo it. I am starting to act like an addict who just needs a fix. I look at my shoes every morning and think, "maybe I could go out for a slow 5 miler today" but my better judgement kicks in (what I am assuming is God telling me not to be an idiot) and leave them alone.

Aside from that though, I really want to vent my frustration of people and races. I am all about getting people involved in races. I LOVE THEM!!!! If I could race every weekend in some fashion, I would. But in my journey of improving peoples lives through running I also tend to see people make really dumb decisions. I am not going to name specific incidents, but am really concerned when people sign up for races 100% undertrained. I do understand that sometimes people sign up for races and then don't get training in because life gets in the way. But what I really don't want is for them to go in undertrained and potentially hurt themselves severely. I have seen people attempt this and hate running after the fact. Running is a beautiful sport. Even if you don't compete it is still a sport that you have to put time into. If you want to run your first marathon GREAT, but give yourself 6-12 months to train. Don't just dive into something because you think it is cool. It is a lot of hard work. and you have to give yourself some time. UGH!!!!

Then, every fall comes a trail race in Des Moines called Living History Farms. If you've never run this race, it is 100% trails (which is my love) and 7 miles. Perfect distance, perfect conditions. Until you hear that the cap is 7500 people. What does this bring? People that run 2-3 miles and have never stepped foot on a trail who think that they can go out and run it. EHHHHH. WRONG!!!! This race also brings something else that I hate. Costumes. WHY??? Trail running is the purest of all running. Why bring in something like costumes????

Sorry if this seems incredibly negative. Again, I have a couple of reasons I am frustrated. I love running. I love getting other people involved in running. I love talking running. I think about running all day, every day. People need to learn to respect it. People don't run because their friends friend got hurt running when he was training for a marathon. True. Injuries happen. Most peoples injuries don't happen because of running, they happen because people are trying to do too much too fast. You say, "you got hurt while running, so you're a hypocrite" and I say, "No, I was trying to do too much too fast." I was stupid and I recognize it. I did 22 miles the day before and was trying to make it a high mileage week without allowing proper recovery time. Dumb

Here is my final point on this topic and then we will switch things up. Running can change your life if you learn to do it correctly. It can change our world if we get our kids involved at an early age. It can help to reduce health care costs because of obesity caused illness. It can change your life by working as a form of therapy. Do you know how many peoples attitudes could be changed just by stepping out the door instead of sitting around craving a drink? Countless. A lot of people that I have met or spoken to about Ultra's have addictive personalities. They use running as their form of therapy. Some of them used to be addicted to booze. Some used to be addicted to pills. Some used to be addicted to pornography. Some have much different addictions. But with all of the positives that can come from it, you also have to respect it. Even if you are not competitive, it is still a sport. There now I'm done.

On a lighter note, this is my favorite time of year. Not only does it bring cooler weather, football, trail running and the like, it also brings my babies b-days. Happy Birthday Lil' Red and Mini Me. You guys have made my heart strong and mommy and daddy love you sooooo much!!!!

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Summer Update

2010-08-06T12:36:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I can't believe how fast time flies when you are busy. I just realized that I haven't put anything on here and figured I would at least put something for the one or two people that will ever read this.

Life has been crazy lately. Work is nuts (in a good, busy way), there is so much going on around home (I'll explain later) and just trying to keep moving with my runs.

First of all, my little, baby soon to be 5 year old will be starting Pre-K in just a couple short weeks. I can't believe how grown up she is. Not that she has grown necessarily as Mini Me has passed her up in weight, but intellectually she is starting to become an adult. She asks a lot of adult questions, is recognizing her letters & numbers quickly, can write words without asking how to write the letter and loves to draw. It is going to be interesting how pre-k goes. We have struggled so much for probably the last year trying to decide if we send her to Kindergarten or do we send her to Pre-K as her b-day is 4 days from the cut-off. Due to her emotional state and her size we decided that Pre-k was going to be the best option. I have talked to many people that have made the same decision and they said that they have never regretted it. We'll see.

Mini Me has sprouted up lately. She is getting so big and really thinning out. She is definitely showing that she is going to be daddy's little athlete. Don't get me wrong, I will NEVER push my kids into sports if they don't want to. I understand the benefits of exercise, but won't push competitive athletics. I was never good at any sport and felt a huge disappointment every year when I got to play a total of 5 minutes between all 4 sports that I went out for. I want my kids to know what disappointment feels like but nothing like what I went through. Mini Me has started to show more of an interest in sports. She is also becoming quite the bully. We had our first experience with hair cutting last night. She cut off several chunks out of her sisters ponytail .NOT VERY HAPPY I must say. My rationale, at least she didn't stab her sister with the scissors :)

My dad had what we'll call a medical wake up call a couple of weeks ago. He's fine. Had a small procedure done and is recovering very nicely. Although it was pretty minor compared to what it could have been, it was incredibly frightening. Bad thoughts and "what if" questions were constantly running through my head. It was a rough week.

We have been camping a lot finally this year, but I think that we have officially decided that we need a camper. All of the hauling stuff, not having a vehicle big enough to carry everything and the set up/tear down is exhausting. I think come winter time we may end up searching a little more. Prices tend to come down in the winter and stay up all summer so that may be the perfect opportunity.

Running has been going actually very well this year. Speed has picked up. Legs are getting really strong, but still dealing with this knee pain. NO, it's not because I run barefoot or run long distance. The stinking treadmill came up to fight me one day and it won. I have been trying to keep a fairly good base mileage up with 15-20 miles on Mondays, Tuesday rest, Wednesday hills, Thursday tempo, Friday varying, rest on Sat & Sun. It has seemed to work pretty well. Paces are definitely picking up.

We did some short speed work yesterday which to be honest I have never done. It was absolutely gorgeous out so we had to take advantage. Whenever anyone wants to go do speed stuff I always duck out and do my own thing. I am not a racer. I am a runner. I like to run far, not fast. But, I got guilted into going and I am actually quite happy that I did. We went down to a place downtown that has a little road that is approximately an 800 yard loop. The plan was to do 200 fast/200 slow/200 fast/200 slow, 400 fast/400 slow, 800 fast/800 slow and back down. It is a 1.3 mile run to get down there and 1.3 back. The rest of the time would be spent working on speed. It was pretty awesome going with the lady that I go with. She has really helped me to improve as a runner. She pushes me HARD but she claims that I am the one driving the pace. Once we started doing the speed we really did keep a great pace average. Averaging between a 6:15-6:20/mile pace. I really think that the very last 200 was the worst part of the whole thing because I was GASSED. Overall though it was a pretty good first time.

No races scheduled so far in the future. Thought about doing the Quad Cities marathon, but just don't know if I can commit to running another road marathon. Not that they are a bad thing, I have just found a love for the trails (too bad in IA we don't have very many). Running on the roads just gets really boring because the terrain never changes. Sure you're going to have hills, heat, stop lights, smokers, traffic, bottles flying at your head, people yelling at you, and stuff like that to contend with, but there is nothing like difficulties of the trails. Rocks, roots, mud, bugs, etc. Ugh, why did I forgot me stuff today :(

That's about it from the land of the Messenjah

Stay strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Update

2010-05-28T14:52:00.003-05:00

I wanted to provide, the few of you who read this, with a little updated since my last post. In the past 3 weeks I have run a total of 4 times. Why you ask? Well, a couple of weeks ago when I was on the treadmill (my arch nemesis) I took a weird step and felt something that didn't feel quite right in my knee. Trying to be smart, I took a week off and felt great during the run and when I stopped I started to have the same pain. Waited another week with the same result. Waited another week with the same result. What the heck is the problem here????? UGH!!!!! It's really strange because when I am out on the run it feels great but when I stop it hurts. I'm not sure. Maybe that is just telling me to not stop running. I bet Mrs. Messenjah would LOVE that idea :) Pray that something gets fixed and I can get back out on the trail/road soon. I am a much happier person when I can get in a run.

Not sure what my next race is going to be. It was going to be one of my favs, but with this knee thing I don't really want to risk hitting up the 20k Dam to Dam in a week, but may do my first 5k in probably 2 years the same day. Something short will probably do me good.

A good friend of mine is part of the Cranky Gnome Athletic Club and gave me some great info about an event that they have coming up in the fall. They are having a 6, 12, & 24 hour Equalizer in Des Moines and wants me to consider giving it a shot (this website is from last years event). I am seriously considering it because it is on a very safe, flat trail around one of the lakes and put on by a great group of people. It's either going to be that or a 50 mile somewhere. Not sure yet though. I'll keep you posted.

I don't really have a lot to talk about since I haven't been running that much. Just really looking forward to the summer and to camping a lot. We are going to the Bonnaroo Music Festival as mine and the Mrs' 30th birthday presents to each other. Should be lots of fun. Not a ton of music that I am familiar with but a music festival none-the-less.

I have gotten really into reading other peoples running blogs lately and is kind of addicting. Here are a few links to some of them that I am following:
...And the Adventure Continues (my good friend Dave. Great runner and Great Christian man)
A Trail Runner's Blog (a lot of peoples favorites)
Dirt Diva (Catra is freaking awesome!!!)
Endurance Buzz
iRunFar
Riding The Wind (Anton Krupicka. This dude is a stud. He just won Miwok 100 if you didn't know)
Ultra Faith
Barefoot Ted (from "Born To Run")
Rogue Valley Runners

That's about it for now. Until next time. Same bat-time, same bat-channel

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Free State Race Report

2010-04-30T15:11:00.013-05:00

Let me start off by saying that this is one of the coolest races that I have ever been a part of. The KC Trail Nerds are one of the greatest groups of runners/volunteers/RD's I have ever had the fortune of meeting. I will get into specifics throughout the report so lets dive in.

We started off our magical weekend Friday. I got to spend the morning just me and the girls. While the Mrs. went off to work for a few hours I got rested, did some work around the house, created my playlists and watched some TV. I really wanted to spend some time just relaxing since it seems like we always have something going on. I took the day off to do just that and it was amazing. I decided that I was going to take my iPod and while on the run and I wanted to just have some playlists so that I wasn't fumbling with the thing while I was running. To give you a little background, my iPod talks. No, not like the voices in my head, but it actually says whatever you are scrolling over. I am assuming that it is for the reason so people don't have to look at the screen while scrolling through things. I decided that it would be fun to create some playlists that had funny sayings in case I needed a little kick in the pants when my energy was low. I made one called "Calm Down" which comprised of some mellow stuff, one called "Christian mix" which is pretty obvious, one called "Why is this even on your iPod?" which was all country (hey you never know when you might need a little twang) and one for when I really needed something hard and fast called "C'mon. You're getting your ass kicked out here".

After having some down time, we jumped in the car to make the 3 1/2 hour drive south to Lawrence, KS. It was going to be cool because even though Mrs Messenjah and I have driven all over we have never driven to KC before. So, completely different experience for everyone. The girls had also never been on a car ride of this duration so this may be a challenging drive. Within an hour it was bliss as both girls closed their eyes to take a nap. The silence was glorious!!!!

Coming in to Lawrence my wife didn't realize that the area was the home of Kansas University. I guess I just assumed that she would know that, but she's not really sports oriented so why would she? We made our way through all of the construction, got to the hotel, checked in, went to our room to discover that the room that we were going to stay in had a door that wouldn't close. With 45 mins left until packet pickup was over with this is when I started to freak out. If you know me, I HAVE to be early to things and thought that I was going to be late. Luckily the hostess at the Quality Inn in Lawrence found us another room right away and we headed out.

If you have never been to Lawrence, I would suggest it. It is a beautiful town, at least this time of year, and on Friday afternoon the downtown area was buzzing. There was not a single spot to park when we went to the packet pickup at Garry Gribble's Running so this was going to be a fast exchange. I got to meet "Bad Ben" and Sophia (the RD's) and they were incredibly inviting to someone like me who was doing their first Ultra. I wish that I would have had some more time to pick their brains, but with my wife and the kids in the car I had to scoot.

Since we were unfamiliar with the area we went to check out Clinton State Park. Upon our arrival we decided that this was going to be some place that we were going to come back to camp. It is beautiful and has a HUGE lake. After driving around for nearly an hour we went back to the hotel for the final carbo load and to hit the hay. My mother-in-law and her boyfriend so graciously drove down as well and we got to hang out with them for a little bit. We ordered some pizzas, pasta and got a few beers down before I decided that it was going to be time to go down. Since I am a planner I made sure that everything was packed and put into a place where I could remember everything in the morning.

My nerves of course got the best of me during the night and I only managed about 3 hours of sleep. I knew that I was going to have to count on the coffee in the lobby to get me through the morning at least though until I got there at 5:30 and realized the only coffee they had that was hot was decaf. DECAF!!!! REALLY??? At 5:30 in the morning!!!!! UGH!!!!! This was not starting off too well. Oh well. Coffee wasn't going to help me much anyway at mile 30 :)

I got down to the starting line and did my pre-race ritual and just tried to get calmed down. I was having a difficult time with this task. Even though there was 0 chance of me winning this thing I was just in awe of the feat I was about to embark on. This is where trail/ultras truly just begin to differ from normal road races. As I was standing around people kept coming up to me asking how I was doing, asking about which race I was doing, asking if this was my first time doing this race or any other ultra, and no one was stretching. You don't get that at other races. People don't care. They are so focused on their own performance and how they are going to do that they don't take time to talk to other people. I don't know if it was the group that was there, being the KC Trail Nerds, or what but it was different. It felt more like a family then people you were competing against. It was a cool experience.

"Bad Ben" & Sophia toed the line about 5 minutes beforehand to give us some final instructions and while continuing to check the time on his iPhone he asked the crowd if there was anyone here from farther away than Pennsylvania. One guy spoke and said "LONDON!!!". London???? Seriously??? This race apparently was big time. As he counted down....3......2......1....We were off and this was going to be the cleanest I was all day

About 50 feet from this picture is where we hit the mud for the first and definitely not the last time that day.

The first 3-5 miles went by fairly well. We had some mud to deal with but nothing too drastic. I was keeping a very good rhythm and taking breaks on the uphills and whenever I needed to. I was feeling really good. My feet/legs/knees/hips felt really good. When I got to the shore along the lake the first time around is when I started to question my performance. Being that it rained quite a bit the night before, maneuvering on the slippery rocks became quite the task. One wrong step and the worst was going to happen. I got pretty lucky though when I did make that one wrong step and fell on my butt. Luckily I have a big butt and it gave me some cushion. I got to the aid station, ate some took an S! Cap and kept moving. This was the fastest aid station that I went through the entire rest of the day.

When I got to the 10 mile station I took a little bit of a break. Had a chat with some of the volunteers, ate some and was just trying to stay loose. It was pretty cool out, mid 60's, and when I was slowing/stopping I was getting cold from the evaporating sweat. I left the 10 mile aid station still feeling pretty good.

Along the way I was talking to a lot of people. I met people from all over. I unfortunately don't remember many of their names, but do remember their stories. One guy was a prof at a college in NE Nebraska that actually grew up in Des Moines and went to Iowa State. It was fun to talk about our Alma mater and some of the fun things about Ames. One guy was from Olathe, KS and has run in a ton of races. He was very helpful at offering advice early on and was just hoping to finish the 100k. Another guy that was also running his first ultra and coined himself as a "trail expert." I thought initially it was a little pompous but later realized that he was just joking with me. It was awesome because I was talking to everyone that came by. I even found myself trying to talk to a guy that I later realized wasn't talking back because he was wearing headphones that I couldn't see. Ooops. Oh well. I love this aspect of the race.

After leaving the 17 mile station, I kind of started to fall apart. I had read that the last 10 miles of the loop is a "bugger" and more difficult and boy was I feeling it. When I left 17, the wheels really started to fall off. I was questioning EVERYTHING. Why was I doing this? What did I have to prove? Was everyone right in telling me that I was crazy? What would my wife think if I quit at 20? Would I be disappointed if I quit at 20? The negative thoughts were there and I was officially hitting "The Wall". In all of the races and training runs that I have done, I have never officially "hit the wall" so this was a totally new experience. It felt like everything was going wrong. I was stubbing my toe with every step. I fell forward once and almost bit the dust. My chest strap on my Camelbak broke. I hit my head on a large overhanging tree. Everything was going wrong. I came in to the 20 mile station REALLY down.

As I crossed the timing mat for the first loop, I looked down at my watch for the first time in a while. 4:02. What? Really? I actually wasn't doing too bad considering the conditions. This was the breath that I needed.

I took off my camelbak and left it at the aid station. There's some weight lost. I did some doctoring to my feet and legs, changed shoes had a bunch to eat grabbed my iPod for the first time all day and took off. In and out in 20 minutes. That was about what I had planned on doing at that station. The volunteers at this station were incredible. Offering everything from baby wipes, band-aids, duct tape, bottles of water to wash my legs, paper towels, everything. They were amazing. They were suggesting things for me to eat because I was having a hard time stomaching much. They were great!!! This was also were I would get my first glance at a guy that I would see have a complete breakdown 17 miles later.

I left the aid station rejuvenated. I had finally busted through the wall and was feeling great. I found that boiled potatoes dipped in salt really do the trick. I think that my fast, screaming music also helped but it didn't last long. I found my mantra in a song by The Chariot called "Teach:" I kept repeating to myself "I refuse to breathe the breath of a failure" and WOW did it work. This race was really starting to get fun now.

I could bore you with a sob story of the amount of mud and how much I slowed down because of it, but what good would it do. The second lap was much slower and much more muddy due to everyone going through churning it all up. It was seriously like running in natural peanut butter. It was gross and incredible at the same time. I came in to mile 30 and this is where I picked up my pacer. I was really needing him too to keep me going. Now a little background on him. He is a great runner. Veteran of 30 marathons+. He has been running for more than 15 years and has run in nearly all conditions but this was going to prove to even be a challenge for him. His laughter was definitely what I needed at this point as I was again starting to crash a bit.

The next 7 miles were constant jokes, stories and run/walks. I felt like I was hydrating well but realized that I hadn't went in almost 4 hours. Not a good thing.

We came in to the 37 mile station and my stomach was churning. I was trying everything I could to keep things from coming up and one volunteer offered me a drink of ginger ale. Wow, my stomach turned right around and almost instantly felt better. After just a bit of food, some more water and a very slight rest we took off.

Up until this point I really hadn't had a COMPLETE breakdown until I heard one of the volunteers yell "you only have 3 miles left" and then it hit me REALLY hard. I had come so far to do this. I had trained for so long and here I only have 3 miles left. What an incredible feeling, but so depressing that it was almost over. When we left the station I actually started to cry, if I had any liquids in me what-so-ever it would have been like an episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". Everything that I thought about made me cray. All I wanted to do was see my girls and I was going to do anything to get there to see them.

As I mentioned earlier, this is where I met a guy that I was pretty sure was on the brink of death. He was hunched over, standing with his pacer and I was for sure she was going to have to carry him. His face was white and looked like he might have just gotten done puking. When I saw him at 20, he had just gotten stretched and looked to be hobbling quite a bit. I don't know if he went out way to hard at first or what but I heard him say a couple of times "I shouldn't have picked a 40 for my first...". I'm not sure if this was "I shouldn't have picked 40 for my first ultra" or if this meant "I shouldn't have picked 40 for my first race". My guess is the first, but who knows. He was lucky enough to find someone at the 30 mile station that just happened to have her running gear to be able to pace him for the last 10 and I honestly think that is what saved him. We were so close to the end and I knew that he just needed a little encouragement. Even though I had never met this guy, I just went up and gave him a hug and told him that there is JUST 3 MILES LEFT. I just had to keep yelling that as we ran past. We were lucky enough to see him at the end and I just yelled "I knew that you could make it!!!"

About a mile later we caught up with a guy that was one of the funniest people I had come across all day. Constantly cracking jokes, telling us about his "alternative methods of calming down after these races" and about some the races that he has run. He was telling us that since 1994 he has pretty much stopped running any races over 50k and has been spending most of his time on trails. This guy truly loved to run and loved to run in the worst conditions possible. He was having more fun at mile 38 than anyone legally should be allowed to. He was from Madison, WI and was a great person to run with for a couple of miles until I started to feel some cramping in my hips. We bid each other adieu and parted ways. Dennis and I made a pact that once we heard people we were going to get going again.

The sound of voices was very easy to pick up since you hadn't heard much in the previous 9 hours. As soon as we heard them we took off. I knew that once I saw the ribbons guiding people down the hill that we weren't much further from the end. As we came out of the woods there they were. All of my ladies!!!!! The pain all of a sudden went away. I picked up Mini-Me and Lil' Red was doing everything in her power to stay away from my mud caked legs. With my girls in tow and with the power of Christ on my side, I had done it!!!!!!! I had just run/walked/hiked/slogged 40 miles in 9:40 (not blazing fast but better than I had predicted). When I crossed the line I was handed my medal and couldn't decide what to do first. Drop to my knees and pray or cry. So I did a little bit of both.

Overall, I finished 26th amongst 40 finishers. I can cope with the fact that I am not fast, but I found more about myself during this 9 hours than I ever thought were possible. Many people say that a marathon is a true test of endurance, but not many marathoners that I know would be able to run through the stuff that we were and not give up at the 20 mile station. Not to discount the effort, training and mindset of what it takes to complete a marathon, but I don't know of any other race that I have done that makes you dig deeper than this did. I know that what I did was a little strange compared to what most people/runners conceive of being fun, but if you asked me immediately afterward if I would do it again the answer was consistent "Absolutely". What an incredible experience. What an incredible day. Despite all of the mud, the rain, some minor dehydration and hips that hurt for a few days it was an amazing event that I can't wait to do again.

To see more photos, read others reports, or to see finishing times click here

Running Hard

2010-04-02T14:47:00.004-05:00

So I have really been hitting the training hard lately. Free State is coming up in a few short weeks and want to really make sure that I got my nutrition, trail runs and long runs down.

Last Sunday I decided that in order to increase my miles I need to make sure and get a 25 miler in. I decided since it was going to be a nice day that I would grab the backpack, my new kicks (Brooks Adrenaline ASR 6's) and run home from Church and add a few miles at the end. Home is about 15 miles from Church and one of the small towns around is about 10 (out & back) from home so I thought it would be a perfect setting. As I woke up Sunday morning I realized that there was about a 20 mph wind from the NW. Luckily a lot of the run the wind would be at my back. I said a lot. Not all. Not most. But a lot. For the first 10 miles it was a cross wind, which I could deal with. The next 5 was at my back, sweet relief. The rest not so much. It was horrible. I didn't have my wind gauge on me (don't worry I don't actually own one) but can guess that the gusts were upwards of 30-35 mph near the end. YUCK!!!! Once I got to 20 I thought to myself, "If I turn around now I can go home and hit 23, jump on the dreadmill for another 3.2 and have in a marathon for the day. Perfect!!!" But that really didn't happen. I got home said to the Mrs. that I was going downstairs to do another 3.2 and she says "Why do another 3 when you just did 23? Call it a day". Of course I had to listen to the voice of reason. I mean, c'mon. She is the boss.

Once I got down I jumped into an ice cold bath and I thought that I was going to lose needed parts of my body. As much as an ice bath sucks, the relief is fantastic when you don't realize the next day that you ran 20 miles.

I took Monday off to recover a bit, but really wanted to hit it up on Tuesday and get a good solid tempo run in. I got an email from a friend that wanted to go out, but the down side he wanted to run a route that I could literally run in my sleep. Being a guy that can't ever turn down a run we went out. Hit 5 and really wanted to do some more, but knew that I had to get back to work.

Wednesday I grabbed another couple of guys that needed to get 6 in for the day. I decided that if I was going to do 6 there was a route that they could turn around and I could hit up some trails and add a couple of miles. It has recently decided to get hot during the middle of the day and it was going to be nice to be in the tree lined trails. I had my water bottle and was feeling pretty good until I started to get a really funny taste in my mouth. What was this???? I kept drinking out if it until I realized, Yep, it's soap. My bottle hadn't gotten completely rinsed out when I washed it and there was a nice foamy layer of soap on the inside, but being on a trail there isn't a real convenient place to stop and fill it back up so I trudged on with a soapy water bottle, a soapy mouth and an upset stomach from all of the soap. GROSS!!!! That day I still managed to get a solid 9 in for the day though, so not too bad of a day.

Thursday, I decided that I would go out by myself and since the trail had the best of me the day before I was going to tackle it again. This time I had much different results. Legs felt good. Ran with no shirt (to the chagrin of people that had to see it), got a little sunburned, but got an 8.5 in (I took a different trail).

Today I had initially told myself that I was going to take the day off and recoup a bit, but woke up and grabbed my clothes "just in case". Whenever that happens, it never really happens that I take the day off but I decided to mix it up a bit and do a little barefoot action. Plan was to go outside before the rain hit and go down an area where I knew there wouldn't be too much stuff on the ground being that it was my first time outside shoeless, but low and behold it was not meant to be and in rolls the storms right as I was heading down to change. Oh well, do it on the treadmill, I thought, the traffic down there has gotten lighter on Fridays now that it is in to April. Wrong. All of the dreadmills were packed except for one. I knew that I had to do it and knew that I was going to get some looks. And looks I got. I even saw one guy mouth "What the f***?" Yes, I am that crazy guy that was running barefoot on the treadmill, so what??? 3.1 down for the day and I am for sure taking tomorrow off.

Looking back at the year, I have had a pretty solid training in prep for Free State. I am officially signed up for the 40 miler and couldn't be more excited. I have a pacer, a clothing/shoe strategy, getting my walk/run strategy figured out, working on the nutrition aspect and getting these runs in. My year looks like this:
January 2010 - 20 runs - 104.69 miles - Longest run 13 miles
February 2010 - 20 runs - 144.85 miles - Longest run 16 miles
March 2010 - 20 runs - 167.26 miles - Longest run 23 miles

Overall not a bad start. With the grace of God, I can keep this up and just get stronger and run longer in prep for hopefully running The North Face Endurance Challenge in Madison later in the year. Keep praying for me. Pray for great runs and good recovery. See you soon

Stay Strong, Run Long,
Tha Messenjah

What a BEAUTIFUL day for a run

2010-03-05T13:05:00.004-06:00

Got out over lunch today and MAN was it nice. 35 deg when I got out the door, a slight 9 mph wind from the South and got in a great 7.25 at 8:45 min/mile. These are the days that I love. When I can go into the gym, see all of the treadmills filled up (which is weird for a Friday at our work gym) and know that I can go outside in my shorts.

Went outside and it was SLOOOOOOOOOOPPY. I can honestly say though that even though I have been out quite a bit this winter and run in the snow, ice, while it was snowy and icy, I much prefer the slop. Just for the fact that slop = warmer temps. I am pretty lucky too that I discovered such great shoes in my Brooks Adrenaline ASR's. I don't know how many puddles I stepped in today with no water or mud in the shoes at all. Now it is a different story for the outside of the shoe.

I am actually quite surprised that I felt pretty good. My group went out 03/04/10 and did 7.70 miles at 8:24 min/mile and I was zapped when I got back. Since it was nice out today too, I wanted to go out and get a longer run in, but was thinking about shooting for a nice slow run. About 1 mile in I thought "wow, I feel really good. Let's crank it up a notch". Now for some of you reading this 8:45 may not be fast, but you have to understand that I am 6' 1" and 210 pounds. Moving that fast for me is REALLY good.

I started off the run listening to my normal long run mix. John Mayer, Jars of Clay, Fiona Apple, etc. Some softer, slower stuff so that I don't find myself running to the music. I got about 2 miles in and decided that it really wasn't what I needed today. If you know me, or if you have read my blogs before, I love podcasts. I love talk radio. I love books on tape. I love listening to sermons. I had a new podcast from Breakaway Ministries that I really wanted to listen to that was a continuation on the life of Abram (Abraham).

This weeks talked about the comparison of Abraham and Lot and the different choices that they made in their lives and how drastically different their lives turned out. As pastor Ben was talking about how much Lot loved the worldly side of life he asked the question, what would be the one thing in your life if you didn't have your life would be destroyed. In the line of questioning it was more about lifestyle, possessions, etc. Not necessarily your husband, wife, kids, loved family member (because obviously your life would be destroyed without them). But it makes you question what in your life is so important to you that takes up so much of your time could you live without. He was trying to pull out of people their thoughts about their jobs, their cars, their money, their things and it made me question myself. What would destroy my life if I couldn't have and it dawned on me it was exactly what I was doing while listening to him speak. I was doing something that has consumed my life, that if I didn't have it, I don't know what I would do. Obviously my "thing" is different than a lot of other peoples "things". My thing isn't something that has hurt my life, it has made it better. It isn't something that affects my family, because most of my training is done over lunch, early in the morning or late at night when my family doesn't even know that I am gone. But this thing that I love so much has made me a happier, healthier, more enthusiastic, smaller person. I have been able contribute more to society than I would have been able to when all I did was sit on the couch. What would I do without it? My simple answer is, I have no idea.

You get the most profound, eye-opening realizations during the middle of a run

Stay Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenajah

Here we go again...

2010-02-17T12:26:00.003-06:00

No this is not going to be a post about Whitesnake.......which would be fun. I just realized that it has been a very long time that I have posted anything on either the Run For The Pines or this blog, so what better day than one that I am taking a day off from running. With the upcoming year I hope to blog a little more consistantly to keep you updated on what is shaking down in the Messenjah Homestead.

The month of Jan was good. Recovered well from a fall on a New Year's Eve run. I would like to send a shout out to my big butt for giving me the cushion that I needed from getting really injured. It could have been very bad, but you were there to get my back ;)

Started incorporating some barefoot running in January, which has been working out very well. It really helps me work out some of those nagging injuries that obviously have been coming from wearing shoes while I run, weird how that works out. I finished the month with 108 miles for the month, but that was figuring in about 2 weeks off for vacation and recovery from my fall.

February has been really good to date too. Got in a 14 and 16 mile long run and topped them both of with additional long runs of 7-8 miles through out the week. My 16 miler I topped off with a 4 miler over lunch, creating a 20 mile day. Have been incorporating some hill stuff speed and heading outdoors a lot. As of yesterday I have about 97 miles in for the month (we are only half way through)

That really is about all I have. I can't wait for the spring to come. For those of you who don't know yet, my "big" race this year is the Free State Trail Ultra and I am going to do the 40 mile option. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

See you soon.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

20 miles in and it is only Wednesday

2009-03-25T14:53:00.004-05:00

Hey guys,

I figured since I had a great day today of running that I would post about it. Finding the motivation has been pretty easy lately because I know with this run coming up in a few months, I kinda just have to do it :)

Anyway, Monday of this week I decided that I would get a good long run in. I had a pretty relaxing weekend and the weather wasn't great for heading outside so I did what every dedicated runner would do, I stayed in and ran on the treadmill. Now I will go on record and say that running in place for 1 1/2+ hours could potentially be the most boring thing on the planet to do (aside from bird watching. Sorry to any bird watchers out there). I got at new iPod nano (long story with the old one) and made sure on Sunday night that it was loaded up with super motivating stuff. I had some running podcasts, some crazy fast and loud tunes and some other garbage that I probably won't listen to.

I jump on and about 3 miles in I start to get a stinging pain in my foot. Now if you know me or have followed this blog you know that I have PF (plantar fasciatis). If you don't know what it is look it up. It sucks. So I just decided to run through it. It was really starting to hurt and then all of a sudden it went away. Not completely but enough to make it tolerable to run. I took some walk breaks just to keep myself fresh and finished 10 in 1:30. Not bad, but could have been better. I finish my workout, head to the locker room and realize that my sock is all squishy. I thought to myself "ah, it's just sweaty socks." I take off my sock and see quite possibly the biggest blister I have ever seen. I am talking half-dollar sized with no pus in it. Then I realized that is what was bothering my foot and it felt better because it popped. Really gross, I know.

So I felt pretty good, despite this gigantic growth on my foot. I took yesterday off and just rested and then today I decided that I felt pretty good. Maybe 2 long runs in one week????

It was still pretty windy this morning and on the cool side so I didn't bring my outdoor stuff with the thought that I would stay inside again. I didn't really know how much I wanted to do today so I just jumped on. Again, I felt really good so I decided that I would do just 6 today. 6 came and went and my legs were still pretty fresh so I decided to do another 4 to make it another 10 mile day. Right as I was thinking that I get that familiar pain. In the same foot. I thought to myself that there was no way that I could get another blister in the same exact spot. I pushed through and the same thing happened. As soon as I hit 10 I jumped off and took of my shoe to find another blister about a quarter of an inch from the other one. That's right. One blister on top of another blister. Hurts and really gross at the same time. Oh well. If I want to run 100 milers I guess I have to get used to it. Maybe I should get my big toenail removed now too??? :)

Race planning is going well. I got a great compliment today from a guy at the church saying that his leadership group used me as an example of how I am using "non-religious talent" to serve God. I would say that I am talented, probably more psychotic. But how cool to get a nice comment like that when all I am really trying to do is spread God's love to all corners of the earth. If I can abuse my body for good and be able to provide hope for some kids that I probably will never meet, what better way to glorify Him???

Keep watching the blog for more info on ways to donate and how to get involved in this adventure. One side note, we did finally decide on the name "Run For The Pines" and will be getting a logo real soon.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

The power of positive thinking

2009-03-09T11:29:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine and I embarked on a journey a little over a year ago. My post today will be about the pride that I have found from just the email that I got from him this morning.

This guy has been a friend of mine for a few years now. We have shared some great experiences together and I think that this will probably be the best. During my walk with Christ, he and I have talked quite a bit. We have thrown around war stories and how God has basically pulled us out every time. When I decided that I was going to make a commitment to stop drinking for a year I felt compelled to bring him along. I did feel a little resistance from him, but he did surprise me one day by telling me that he was going to do it. My jaw almost hit the floor. This guy loved the sauce. We was kind of known for his expensive taste in alcohol. I didn't really believe that it would happen, but wanted to support him anyway.

Over the last year, he and I have struggled together. I would call him whenever I wanted just one and told me that there was so much to work for. I knew that we was struggling primarily because of what was happening in his world. He had just gone through a job change, moved to a new city, his job was under water due to the floods of '08 and was having difficulty selling a house while paying for rent at a new place. I thought that if he was going to crack he was going to do it soon. Boy was I wrong.

Things slowly started to turn for him. The house sold, the waters receded, his job is getting better, they are slowly starting to get more involved in their community and the best gift of all, he has decided to wash his life clear of all the garbage that has plagued him for so long and the blood of Christ is going to be the cleansing agent!!!!!!!!

His one year is today and after all of the stuff that has happened he came out victorious. He sent out an email this morning to a bunch of people whom I have never met. Maybe people from work or church or something, but basically just describing how hard the last year has been for him. At the end, he shocked me even more and said that this weekend he is taking the next step of faith and being baptized.

I ask for you to pray for him that his life may be as blessed, if not more so, than mine

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

New Day

2009-02-13T08:17:00.004-06:00

I just wanted to pass along this bible study. I get one everyday and this one in particular speaks to what I have struggled with for the past week or so.

New Day
By Jordan

Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Do you spend your time worrying about the future or what has happened in the past? Do you let what has happened in the past influence the future? This verse really sets me straight when I start worrying about what's going to happen in the future, when I worry about what I can and cannot do. Every day is a new day, a new chance to further your relationship with God, and a new day to grow and become closer to your spiritual family. Every day is a new day, a new chance, a new sunrise and a new sunset. Donât worry about what you've done, or what you're going to do. Focus on Godâs will for your life and what is right. Some days it's hard but this is a verse that we need to keep in the forefront of our minds. How often do we worry about the mistakes of yesterday? Let's leave yesterday where it belongs, in the past, and move to our ever brighter future with Jesus. Living worry free is a good feeling, it is freedom.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Today is the day the Lord has made...

2009-02-12T07:25:00.009-06:00

Sorry I haven't written in some time. Things around the office and the homestead always seem to take all of my time. I love the saying "If you aren't busy, you're broke" but some times you just have to spend some time and reflect on what we have and how truly blessed we are.

Last week, as some of you know, we received some disappointing news at the church in which we attend. We found out that 2 very well liked pastors were being let go. Although a lot of us knew that something like this probably would happen, we didn't think it would be this soon. I have been reading some of the messages that one of the pastors has been sending via Facebook and it sounds like he is somewhat at peace with the decision, but it makes you realize that everyone is affected by our current economic situation and we can make it through.

I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about politics, the economy or anything like that, but it really is a reminder that we should all be thankful that we have what we have. I am not talking about TV's, fancy clothes, a cool car. We should be thankful for Love, friendship, a roof over our heads, food, a job and God. There are so many around the world that have far less than you and I could ever imagine as we sit on the internet, drinking our coffee, inside away from the cold (or heat. Check local listings) reading a blog by a random person about their thoughts on the day.

I implore you today. Take some time and "smell the roses." Look around you and realize that this was all created by God and that we need to thank Him for everything from the smallest atom to the biggest mountains. We need to thank Him for our family, friends, for food, our abilities and most importantly for His LOVE.

"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever."- Psalm 30:11-12

Most of us, myself included, are going to spend some money over the next couple of days buying our sweetheart something nice for Valentine's Day. There are some people that this is how they show their love. I am guilty of buying Mrs. Messenjah just to show her how much I love her, but just think that God loved you so much that He sent a man to this world to die. And anyone that has ever been in a delivery room for birth knows that Jesus was not sent here in a pretty package with a nice bow :) That is true love. Don't just spend the money to tell your loved one how much you love them, show them. In addition to that nice gift spend some time and talk. Go for a walk. Make them realize how much you appreciate them. It won't be as impressive as the endless Love that God has for us, but showing them will be more impressive than a goofy card.

On the running front, things are going well. We have had a minor setback with one of our pastors leaving, as he was the main contact for our international outreach, but we will make it through. The weather has been great. Some days in the last week even reaching 60 degrees. 60 in February is crazy. We have had such weird weather (-40 to +60 in a month) but my training has been staying pretty consistent. I am still planning on running the Dam-to-Dam (one of the best races I have run) and am going to dip my toe into the arena of Ultra Running (anything over a standard 26.2 mile marathon) along with our run across the state. We are still looking for a creative name so if you have anything, let me know.

Anyway, gotta go. Duty calls.

Stay Stron, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

Run the state Update

2009-01-15T08:06:00.002-06:00

Thank you to all of you that have sent me emails wanting to know more about the Run the State. I am currently getting a website set up for everyone to donate. As I have not gotten this set up yet, I ask that you continue to watch for future updates on this blog. Until then if you would like some more info, please send me an email at this (click this) email address.

Thanks again,

Tha Messenjah

Run the State

2009-01-10T13:42:00.003-06:00

So here we are in 2009. I know, it has been 10 days that we have been in the new year, but this is really the only time that I have had the chance to sit down and write. With all of the bad news of 2008, I must say that I think that it was such a great year. My marriage is possibly the best it has ever been, I rededicated my life to serving my God, I decided to be baptized (for all of the right reasons), and I decided that I was going to take on one the most challenging things I may ever do. As noted in some of my other posts, a group of crazy people (myself included obviously) have decided to run across the state of Iowa to raise money for an orphanage in South Africa. I know that this is old news to most of you but as we get more into 2009 it is starting to get more real for everyone involved. Don't get me wrong, I am not regretting making this decision one bit. It just got real when I met with one of the pastors that is involved with it yesterday. We started talking sponsorships and other things and I realized that we have a long road ahead of us (literally and figuratively). Anyway, I am so excited for all of the possibilities that it is going to bring. We haven't quite decided yet what the money raised is going to specifically going towards, but my main hope is that it will bring hope and encouragement to the kids there. Anyway, now I have to go do some other things but please watch this blog and your inboxes for more information to come. Take care.

Run Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenjah

HE is the reason for the Season

2008-12-22T09:57:00.004-06:00

I am sitting here with just 3 days until one of the greatest days of the year I figured that I would write one more blog of the year as I don't know when or if I will be able to write until 2009.

As I am taking a little break from work sitting at my desk and just kind of reflecting on how great my life is, I hear two of the most annoying, selfish statements I have heard this Christmas season. "I will be really disappointed if I don't get (________)" and "What did you do about Santa?" Wow. What a shame that still 2000 years after we received the greatest gift that man will ever know someone says that they are going to be disappointed if they don't receive a certain gift and asks about Santa.

Now I am not playing some "holier than thou" kind of thing here. I know that I have said the same thing about being disappointed about not getting a particular gift, but this is a grown woman. I don't know if she knows our Lord or not. It isn't something that I want to get into with this particular person, but even if she doesn't where did the idea of "Better to give than to receive" go? Christmas is not about how many gifts we have gotten or how much someone spent on us. It should be about spending time with family and enjoying the holiday that was created for HIM.

About the Santa conundrum. A guy that I work with celebrated his Christmas with his wife and kids this past weekend and another co-worker asked what they told their kids about Santa. I about freaked out, but I bit my tongue and am writing this right now. I wish that for one year there would be no talk of Santa. I realize that Santa was created many years ago for children, but when did Santa take over for Jesus? We started a tradition last year in our household by not talking about Santa if possible. We took the girls to see Santa, but they were freaked out (It was hilarious Lil' Red wouldn't go near him). We have Santa stuff up that we have been given over the years, but we are trying to instill in our kids that Santa is a fictional character and Jesus was obviously not. We read the "Night before Christmas" just out of tradition but read the story of the virgin birth right after. We started something in our house last year too by making a birthday cake for Jesus and singing "Happy Birthday". The girls help us make the cake and then we sit down and enjoy it together as a family. What a cool way for the girls to realize why we are celebrating and that it is not about who gets more stuff.

The meaning of Christmas has been lost throughout the generations and it saddens me very deeply. It isn't about spending time with family and celebrating the birth of our Savior any more and that is disheartening. It is about how much crap we can get that we will probably end up throwing away or forgetting about in 6 months. We have all heard or read John 3:16 many times in our lives but have you ever sat down and really thought about what it really means. God loved us so much that He gave us the very first Christmas present before we were born. He gave up a little bit of Himself for every one of us. He sent His son to come to this earth, take on all of our sin so that we wouldn't have to suffer. This is the season that you should remember this. Jesus came here and died for me and you. What a powerful gift that we will never be able to repay. No matter how rich we get, no matter how many toys we buy for someone, we will NEVER be able to repay Him.

This season as we are opening up our presents and sitting down to Christmas dinner I ask that you pray for the people that are leading this country. Pray for the soldiers who aren't going to be able to spend time with their families this Christmas. Pray for the homeless people living out on the streets that haven't seen their family in years and that maybe they will feel some happiness this Holiday season. Pray for the people that are struggling with their demons and that they will be able to break the chains in the upcoming year. Pray for those suffering from depression or other afflictions that they may find some comfort knowing that by coming back to Christ he can set you free. Know that I am praying for everyone of you that may be reading this that you will find happiness and joy this CHRISTmas season.

What a difference a year makes

2008-12-09T07:06:00.005-06:00

I have always heard the phrase "What a difference (fill in the blank) makes" but today I am going to make the statement, "What a difference a year makes." Why you ask? Well it was about this time last year that I made a couple of commitments that have changed my life and the life of my family. It was exactly one year ago today that I heard the service at church that changed my perception of my place on earth. Many of you have heard my testimony, if you haven't click here and go down to week 5 of the WhyI series. But on this day one year ago God infected me and even though there was some resisitence I couldn't shake it. I was a broken person that had no direction in my life. I lost my job earlier in the year, I was lucky enough to get something quickly, but it was different and I wasn't happy. I was working a second job that took A LOT of my time from my family that had a new member. I felt like I didn't know myself, my wife, my kids. I made a commitment one year ago today to change for the better. After hours of groups and classes I feel like I am finally starting to get where my life is going. Although sometimes life is a little cloudy, I am starting to make out the shapes. God has lit a fire in me that I have never had before and at times it is scary, but I know that he has a plan for me.

A year ago I was living for the here and now and didn't care who I had to hurt to get what I wanted. Christ died for me to be here and all I am living for now is to glorify the commitment he made to me.

The thing that really made me realize this was when a group from work went down to a homeless shelter that serves meals every day to the homeless or struggling individuals of Central Iowa to serve meals. This was something that I have always wanted to do but "something always came up." Well, I was made the lead of a committee at work that deals with community involvement and I think that God was saying that this is my time to serve His people. I contacted the shelter and scheduled a couple of times for people to go down. I really didn't know what to expect. We went down and we saw some of the most thankful people in this world. These are people that are dealing with abuses (from substance to emotional) and were just happy to see our faces as we handed them a plate of food. Food is something that we take for granted, many times throwing away left overs because we don't like to reheat food. These are people that are just happy to have a warm place to stay at night when we complain because our heating bills have gone up. These are people that are happy to have one pair of pants, a pair of shoes, a shirt and a coat, when we complain because can't get that new outfit. These are the times when we need to wake up and look around us to see the people that are hurting, those that are calling out for help but have no one to listen to. Last night when I told my 3 year old what I did today and how I went and gave food to people that don't have houses she said to me "they can come live at my house." I about started crying. How proud I was to hear my kid be willing to let someone who doesn't have something stay at her house. Her statement helps me to realize that I don't know if one year ago today, if she would have been the same age, she would have said that. Before it was all about me and what I had to do to get what I want. Now, I begin each day thanking God for making me so lucky to have the things I do. A second chance at life, a loving family, a home, a job, food on the table.

As we slowly approach the birthday of our Lord I ask that you take some time to look around you and be thankful that he came here to be able to provide for you. He has given you everything. Take some time to look around you and think about the people that don't have the luxuries. Being a child of God does not come from how much success you have seen. It comes from glorifying the word of God through how you live your life.

Stay Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenjah

The power of prayer

2008-11-14T12:55:00.004-06:00

So due to some, what is being called "gentle prodding" (thanks Becky), I am writing a new blog entry. I haven't written anything lately because honestly I don't have much to talk about. Life is really good. I took on a new role at work. I am now on a committee that I have been wanting to get on for quite some time and home life is rolling right along.

If I have one thing to talk about it really is the power of prayer. We here stories all of the time about how people have been affected by the power of prayer. I can honestly say, before I was "born-again" I didn't really believe it. I would do it just when I needed something. Most of the time it was prayers like "...please let me pass this class..." or "...please let me get this job..." but that really isn't what prayer should be about. I am reading a book that most consider the next book in line with the Bible called Purpose Driven Life and it talks about how this life is not about us. It is about God. We should focus our attention on the one who created us in order to live a full, purposeful life. It got me to thinking how selfish prayer can be sometimes and how we should not always make our prayers about us.

A couple of weeks ago a very good friend of my family found out that her daughter, who is the same age as Lil' Red, had cancer. I felt horrible for her and the family. These are good people that have really struggled through a lot of things in their lives. The mom found out that her daughter was going to go into surgery within 48 hours to remove the tumor that was behind her heart. I felt mortified because this little girl has played with my little one on numerous occassions. I have known the mom for my entire life and I wanted to do something, but not knowing what to do I started a prayer chain for her on Facebook. I thought that if I made people aware of it she would find some comfort in other peoples support and what better place than one of the worlds largest social networking sites.

I sent invites to everyone in my "friends" list that might know her and just asked for everyone to pray for this little girl. I thought that it may get a few dozen people to join and really didn't expect much. I just wanted the family to know that there were people supporting them that they may not speak to everyday. At last check there were 212 people joined on this group that are collectively praying for her. There are great messages from people across the country that know this family one way or another that are posting their support for this 3 year old to get better. The mom continues to give updates everyday on where the treatment is and just last night they got great news that all tests have come back negative, which means that she will avoid chemo but still have to undergo tests for probably the next 5 years or so.

Now the non-followers are going to look at this as marvels of modern medicine, but if you look at the chain of events things did not really take a positive turn until the outpouring of support and people saying "I included you in my prayers tonight" started flowing in. Coincidence? I think not. Gods power and majesty is ever inspiring and amazing.

Sometimes we spend too much of our time in prayer on the things in our lives that are going to make us "happy", but what we should be really praying for are things that are going to make the world better. I am reminded of one of my favorite prayers that comes out of the Old Testament. It is in 1 Kings (I think) when God says to Solomon flat out, "Ask for anything and I will give it to you" Wow!!! What question for the creator of the universe to ask. Instead of asking for things like gold, silver, a new house, a new chariot, a new iPod (hint to people looking for Christmas gifts) he asked for strength, wisdom and the ability to lead his people. Wow again!!! What an answer. After that God provided. I have begun to take that philosophy with my prayers as of late. I have been asking God to give me the things that I need to lead at home, at work and in the community and He has been providing abundantly. I feel more strong in relationships, I feel wise when giving an answer to a question at work and I feel confident in the way I am living my life.

Now, don't get me wrong. Not all of our prayers are going to be answered in the time that we want or ever. Somethings just aren't in the cards and God is going to use your time and talents in the best ways. If you think that job is the thing that you need to feel success in your life, but it may put you in a bad position to manage your personal life, God may not give it to you. Just know that no matter what you ask for God is listening.

Spend your time in prayer every day. Just make sure that you are praying for the right things. Pray for family, pray for friends, pray for stable marriages, pray for humanity, pray for wisdom, pray for strength, pray for courage. If you are new to a spiritual relationship with Christ that is what you should spend your time praying for. If you are a "more experienced" follower, if you are finding that your prayers are not being answered, take some time to examine what you are praying for. If you spend some time praying for others, you may be surprised at God's response.

MMMMMM Lobster

2008-10-28T10:15:00.004-05:00

This is one of my favorite spots in the world and one of my favorite foods

Run The State Route

2008-10-19T21:47:00.006-05:00

Hey everyone,

Most of you have wanted to know what my route is going to look like for the run below. Here it is:

Stay Strong, Run Long,

Tha Messenjah

A very REAL post

2008-10-13T08:23:00.009-05:00

This one is going to be a very real post so brace yourself

This past weekend my wife and I had our first "date" in more than a year. We got a sitter and decided to go to the Purpose for the Pain tour event that was taking part at our church. This event was being put on by our student ministry and in conjunction with To Write Love On Her Arms.

It is an organization that was started by a friend of a girl named Renee who had been turned away from treatment facilities while she was dealing with depression, cutting, drug abuse, etc. A couple of her friends took it upon themselves to live with her for every second for 5 days to "break" her self-destructive patterns and inject God back into her life. They then started a movement to help people just like Renee break the chains of her afflictions. It is a world wide phenomenon and what I feel is an important movement. I had heard about it a while ago and always thought that it was important, but never really delved into the research that much.

So, Friday night we went to the concert. I must say that I discovered that dates don't have to be as expensive as they were prior to kids and still have a lot of fun. We went to Subway beforehand and went to the show. It was quite weird when we showed up, as we were the oldest people there by at least 10 years. :( The first band, nevertheless, was good. Then came Dan Evans of "The Biggest Loser" fame. Dan was a very good songwriter and he has an amazing story of overcoming an addiction to food that kept him from pursuing his dream of performing music. Then came Renee Yohe and this is where the night turned real.

If you know me, which I hope you do, you know that especially when going to concerts I get really excited and look at the website and scour them for hours while preparing to go. In prepping for this concert I found myself trying to find more out about Renee's story and the incredible journey that she has been on. I found that she is even more of an incredible person when you take the time to listen to her story from her own words. I knew that listening to her in person was going to be emotional, but didn't know to what extent. When she came on stage she started to read excerpts from her book and found that a lot of the things she was reading about mirrored a lot of stuff that I thought/wrote when I was younger. As I listened to her I thought a lot about the things that I went through when I was younger, obviously not as intense as the things that she or others go through, but my issues all the same. Her thoughts of death, suicide, murder, and pain sounded so familiar. When you have these thoughts you think that something is really wrong with you and that you are the only person in the world that are having these thoughts and nightmares. Pain is personal and just can't bring yourself to share any of it with others. As we listened, I started to wonder how many people here, at the church, were going through these things. I hear of the adults that are dealing with their own issues, but what about these kids. When Renee was done speaking she opened the floor to questions and I heard some of the most shocking things I have ever heard.

A girl, that I can only guess to have been around 12 or 13, grabbed the mic and started about how she wanted to know how to comfort a friend that was her age that was considering suicide as an option to deal with the pain of her mothers sickness. 12 or 13 years old!!!!! The mic was passed around to a couple of other people wanting to know from Renee how God changed her life. When they were starting to wind down on the amount of time she was allowed, another girl that must have been 17 or 18 took the mic and said that she was a "scratcher" since blades scared her. She would scratch herself until she bled to deal with her depression. The mic eventually came back to the little girl that was dealing with her friend and you knew as soon as she handed the mic off the first time there was more to her story. When she got the mic the second time she almost immediately started to cry when she said, "...I have thought about ending it..." Wow. I don't know what kind of pain this little girl is in, but to contemplate suicide at 13 is insane.

As adults, we think "how could these kids have any depression issues? All they have to worry about is high school" but apparently it is happening. As much as we try to ignore the problem, it is not going away. According to the TWLOHA website, suicide in people 15-24 is the 3rd leading cause of death and 90% of all cases of suicide mental illness which 2/3 are never treated. This really gives me a different perspective of where our young people are today. I now know that those thoughts that I had weren't all that uncommon and I thank God that He spared my life.

I ask today that during your prayers you pray for our youth. The young kids of this nation are under far more stress than they will let out to an adult. I ask that you pray for their healing and strength to talk about the problems that they are having. I ask that you pray for them to seek out counsel if they are having thoughts of suicide. It is real and an epidemic.

If you are a parent, show and tell your kids how much you love them everyday. Spend 5-10 minutes to tell them how much you love them and find out if they are having problems. As a verse in the bible says, "Be quick to listen, slow to judge..." Ask questions, get involved in their lives. Tell them that you are proud of them for something every day. You wouldn't believe how much those 5-10 minutes every day can change the life of a young person.

If you are not a parent but know people that have tweens and teens, be there to listen to them. If you don't know people that have kids this age, be a big brother/big sister. Kids just want to talk to someone who will listen. I have found that it is much easier to get things off of my chest when I am not speaking to my parents or someone that is going to judge. Please help to fight this. If we band together as a nation, we can turn this problem around.

If none of these apply to you, just be there to talk to people. We as humans are flawed and a lot of the time we just need someone to talk to. If you have friends that you have seen changes in, talk to them. Don't counsel, just listen. Be there always.

For more information on depression, self-injury and addiction, please click on the banners below.
Stay Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenjah

New Adventure

2008-10-08T08:53:00.004-05:00

I stand here today writing this officially as a "race" organizer. Well, not really a race, but more like a fund raising campaign.

We all go through life trying to find our purpose and a class that I am taking at Church is called "The Great Adventure" made me realize that even more recently. It is part of our Men's Fraternity group and some of what we have been talking about lately is finding your passion and using the gifts and talents you have to find that one thing in life that excites you. We are also going to be starting a great campaign at Church and I thought what better way to use my gifts to better the Church and a little part of the world.

I have been praying for a long time to find my purpose and God has really been pushing my heart to use my love for running to do something. I have always wanted to run for a charity, but never found the right one. I could run for children's cancer research, I could run for cancer research, I could run for homeless shelters, I could run for this or I could run for that. I really think that it was part of God's plan to say "Look, I have bigger plans for you. Just be patient and that thing will come." So I have been looking and not finding anything. Once these two things came up I knew that this was it. This was the thing that He has been pointing me toward. Now that I have bored you with the little details here it is. I am staging a 4-6 person relay race across the state of Iowa. There it is. 330 miles over 5 days raising money for the orphanage in South Africa that is sponsored by my church. Wow!!! I don't know what I am doing, but this is going to be a trip.

I am in turn asking for some things from you, the viewing public. I am obviously asking for your prayers that this goes over smoothly. I am also asking that if you know of anyone who owns/runs/works in a business (small or large) that would consider being a sponsor of this event, please let me know who they are or have them contact me directly. I am planning on running the race in the fall of 2009. I am currently gathering my team and getting all of the approval from the leaders at our church. I am going to be asking for sponsorship and private donations, so please watch your inboxes near the first of the year and please know that anything that you give, small or large, will go directly to help orphans that have been affected by the AIDS epidemic that has basically taken over the continent of Africa.

This is not going to be a campaign to help the church, but a campaign to help these children that have been abandoned, left homeless and left without parents to guide them through life. These are children that are being provided with the necessities of life and learning the marvelous word of our Lord. If you would like to learn more about the orphanage and some of the work that is being done there click here to check out The Pines.

This is going to be a huge undertaking and I will need all of the support I can take. I ask for your prayers and thoughts as I organize this with others. I ask that you pray for our safety and guidance. This is something that I have never done before and am looking forward to the challenge and know that the reward will be more worth the effort than what I put in.

Please let me know if you have any questions or leave a comment in the field below and I will respond as quickly as I can.

Thanks

Stay Strong, Run Long,
Tha Messenjah

Thoughts on the run

2008-10-01T19:22:00.004-05:00

Hello all,

Today I decided that I was going to get a real worthwhile run in. I wanted to do 10 since that would be the longest in the last couple of months. OUCH!!! I have done a couple longer runs 7-9 miles, but hadn't broken the double digits lately. I made sure to check the weather this morning before I left so I knew what lied ahead. Meterologist Jeriann said "Cold." Dang It!!! Why on the day that I decide to take a longer lunch and do a long run does she have to say stuff like that. I threw a long sleeve t in my bag and headed off to work. While I was at work all I could think about was fueling properly before I went. I had a great amount of water, a good breakfast and an apple about an hour before heading out. I also decided that I was going to take a different route, monotony kills your sense of adventure when running. I also decided that I that I was going to do something that I hadn't done in a while, take my iPod.

There are a couple of reasons why I haven't run with my iPod in a while. 1) The people in my running group hate them. 2) The left channel (left ear) doesn't work. It has been difficult to listen to because you find yourself tilting your head to the right almost like your head is heavier. I know weird.

When I was getting ready it was time to make that all important decision of what to listen to. When I was training for the marathons it was podcasts all the way so I went with what worked in the past. This time it was the "Daily Audio Bible" (found on iTunes or on their website Daily Audio Bible. Right now in the New Testament I am in the book of Acts. I was listening to Brian (the host) read the excerpts about Paul and what he suffered in the name of Jesus. He went through so much just to spread the good word of Jesus. Today it talked about the severe beatings he took because he wouldn't surrender his beliefs. It made me wonder, what would I do if put in that situation? Being a saved person and realizing what Jesus went through for me, I would say that I believe and take my punishment, but who knows what would really happen if put into that situation. That thought breaks my heart. Am I that selfish that I would deny my Saviour to save my life?

After I listened to a couple of the lessons I decided to listen to some music that might bring back to life the importance of my faith. I turned on a great group, Flyleaf, and heard a song that I love that took on a little bit more meaning. The song is called "Cassie" and is about a girl that attended Columbine High in Colorado and was one of the people who lost her life when those maniacs terrorized the school. Here are the lyrics:

The question asked in order

To save her life or take it

The answer no to avoid death

The answer yes would make it

Do you believe in God

Written on a bullet

Say yes to pull the trigger

Do you believe in God

Written on a bullet

And Cassie pulled the trigger

All head bowed in silence

To remember her last sentence

She answered knowing what would happen

Her last words still hanging in the air

Do you believe in God

Written on a bullet

Say yes to pull the trigger

Do you believe in God

Written on a bullet

And Cassie pulled the trigger

This is a truly amazing story and there have been some things posted on-line that have disputed whether or not she said it or if it was even her that answered the question, but a better question would be would you answer yes? There are people that are faced with this question everyday in far regions of the world and given a chance to save their lives and they say no. I am here to say give me the bullet.

After all of this it made me realize that even though I am suffering during a run there are millions of people around the world that are suffering far worse than I am. I can complain about how my legs hurt until I am blue in the face but when I am faced with this question I hope that the suffering of my saviour will pour out of my face in honor of him.

That's it for now. Stay Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenjah

Economic Blah Blah Blah

2008-09-26T10:26:00.006-05:00

With the state of our economy right now, I think that everyone has their own thoughts, opinions and worries. Some of which are justified and should concern us. I think that the government needs to "punish" the greedy heads of these companies but we all need to examine our own lives too and not just look at the government. As history has shown bankruptcy, foreclosures, unpaid debts, credit cards and money problems have been on the rise for decades and not just in the past 8 years. At the end of each presidency there is always an economic dip. Every new candidate has their own "plan" to stimulate the economy because according to every candidate that ever runs for the highest executive office in the country, our economic status is in trouble because of the other guy.

Don't get me wrong. I think that we as a country are in trouble because of a few companies and governmental problems, but we also need to look at the way in which we conduct our lives. How many people that you know, or maybe even yourself, have 5-10 maxed credit cards, a house, 2 or more brand new cars, school loans, the biggest and the best of everything, no savings, etc.? I am not saying that I don't have school loans. I am not saying that I don't have a house. I am not saying that we don't have a credit card (singular). I am not saying that we don't have a newer car. What I am saying is that we need to look into our lives and see where we are setting ourselves up for disaster.

I thank God everyday for my wife. I know that I get into patterns when I would like to go out for dinner every night or buy a new iPod or whatever, but her unwillingness to fold to my barrage of attempts to acquire the new cool thing will for the most part keep us out of this financial mess.

A few years ago when the housing market was good, how many people do you know decided, "I need a new house"? Not that there was anything wrong with their current situation, but that they felt they deserved a new home and instead of looking at their finances realistically, they went to a bank and got a loan for a home for $150,000 when they realistically could only afford a home worth $120,000? Now, $30,000 may not seem like much, but when you break it down it comes up to $83 plus interest extra per month that they they would be spending. Depending on interest rates that could mean that they pay well over $100 extra than what they could afford. Now, I don't know about you, but that would be almost a weeks worth of groceries for me, a payment on my car, my electric bill, my heating bill, part of my medical insurance and a lot of other things. I think a lot of the problems from the housing boom also come back to the Sub-Prime Mortgage. If you are not real sure what the whole deal with the sub-prime fiasco is check it out here: Sup-Prime Lending. This in turn not only increased the foreclosure and bankruptcy issue, it exploded it when people then realized that they couldn't pay mortgages, credit card bills, health bills or their heating. We are now seeing the backlash from the banks offering ARM's and sub-prime loans to people that couldn't afford them. I think that the banks need to be punished, but if a business fails who is going to pick up the slack? That's right you and me. It is the way that any failed business is going to be saved. On a smaller scale, most retail businesses depend on the Christmas holiday shopping season to get them out of financial turmoil. Well, the banking industry does not have the Christmas holiday shopping season when they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year on foreclosed homes.

I hope that banks will also re-examine their borrowing practices. Don't provide lines of credit to a person that earns $20,000/year for $10,000 worth of available credit. That doesn't make financial sense. Trust me, I used to work with a guy that was a college student and was really excited when he got a loan for $10,000 and he made only about $15,000/year. Duh!!!!

Do I think that we are in a recession? Yes. Do I think that we are headed for another Great Depression? Maybe. Do I think that we can get through this? Absolutely!!!

I hate the fact that we are facing these economic problems. I hate the fact that I am going to have to foot the bill for other people's mess ups. I hate the fact that people aren't responsible. But what can we do about it now? We can stick together. We can make it through tough economic times. Many of our parents or grandparents lived through the Great Depression and will tell you all about it. Unfortunately my Grandma was probably too young to remember, but if you listen to the stories from the depression where did people find comfort and strength. That's right in God. We hear it all of the time, put your faith and trust in God and you will prosper. This does not mean that you will gain worldly wealth, but a wealth that far exceeds the things that will be destroyed by moths and decay. One thing that this world has shown us is that we can't rely on anyone here. The one person that we can rely on to work for us is God.

Although this whole thing is a mess, we should be thanking God that we have the things readily available that we do. We have cars to take us to work. We have a home (apartment, condo, house boat, house) to shelter us. We have beds to sleep on. We have food to eat. At least we don't have to worry about extreme poverty or an economic situation like that of Zimbabwe that the government has not enacted a 1 Million percent inflation rate.

If I can close with one thing, I would ask that we please stick together and ask God to give the leaders of our country strength and courage and to put the American people first when making this landmark decision. If history shows us anything, when we stick together as a nation we can fight through anything.

Hopes and Prayers needed

2008-08-28T08:05:00.003-05:00

The other day (last Sunday) I received a phone call from a man that I consider to be one of the best, God-fearing men in the country and it really concerned me. He might read this so I won't give his name, but he is my uncle and one of my favorite relatives. It is not uncommon for him to give me a call just to check in. He has been here 100% on my spiritual journey and helping me to find Christ. He is a great supporter of mine and I love to just talk to him sometimes as someone who can relate. This was the day of our girls birthday party. All of the grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles were going to be at our house to help us celebrate, so I thought that might have been what he was calling about. I picked up the phone and he responded and then the phone went silent. Usually that means that I lost the call in my house but my phone didn't say "Call lost." I kept saying his name and telling him that I thought I was losing him. Finally I heard a sniffle and instantly my heart sunk. He, like me, is an emotional guy and I knew that if there was crying something had happened. I kept asking "what's going on? Is everything OK?" only to receive no answer. Finally he answered. "I need your help." What does he need my help with. This guy has a great job, a amazing head on his shoulders and a stellar family. What could he possibly need from me. He said, " [wife's name removed to protect identity]'s dad just had a heart attack. I need your prayer. He is in Colorado and they are doing CPR right now. I need you to pray for him." What else can you say but "Absolutely."

My life has been so much different from when I have had to deal with this kind of thing in the past. Before if someone would have called or sent me an email I would have said "OK" and continued on with what I was doing. Not this time though. Things are different. I knew that I had to and fast. After I hung up the phone with him, I told my wife and her mom what was going on. I had been doing some stuff on the computer so I went back downstairs and sunk into my chair. Here is my chance to step out of my selfishness and have a good talk with God. I prayed for God to do the right thing. If this was his time to take one of his sons home, do it but make sure that the family is taken care of. If not, please help him to recover quickly and have as little pain and discomfort as possible. Something deep down inside though told me that God had already brought him home. After 2 hours or so, my phone rang again. I saw the caller id come up and kind of had an idea what the call was about. I answered and heard the news that he had passed away. I offered my condolences and said the only thing that a Christian man would understand "He is with the Father right now. He is in a much happier place." I know that this is one of the last things that someone wants to hear, but it is the truth. We do so many things in our lives in order to fight off death, but true life comes from having a relationship with Christ and knowing that one day He is coming back for me and I will be with him for eternity.

I had read in one of my devotionals that we should not consider death to be a bad thing, but how do you convey that to someone who is hurting over the loss of a loved one. I thought back too during a class that I was taking earlier in the year when one of my classmates said "I had always feared death, but when I was sitting in that hospital bed I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. If I died, I was going home to meet my Father." How crazy is that thought? To be happy about death. But think about the power of Christ knowing that she was ready, but He wasn't ready for her. I know that nothing that anyone can say can cushion the blow of losing a family member. I have lost quite a few to different circumstances and nothing can make that feeling not hurt. Even if your relationship with that person is not the best, not having them around still hurts.

As I thought more and more about it, I prayed that God give me guidance to help my uncle in this time of need and stress. As I sent him an email I saw it turn from a "I'm sorry" letter to a letter encouraging joy in this time. You can only hear so many sorries before they start to lose their sincerity. I didn't want my letter to lose sincerity or focus. I explained that this should be a time of joy and hope for the future. I told him that as the "spiritual leader" of his family he needs to stand strong for his wife and kids. I didn't know how he would perceive it, but he did write me back and I think that it helped. I ask that you join me in my prayer that his family can stay strong and for my aunt's mom. She needs it more than anyone. I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose the love of my life.

In other news. I also need your prayers as I begin a new project at my church. The details are quite long and I am still fuzzy on some of the things so I won't bore you with a rambling. In short it is a stewardship program that is being set up at our church and I was volunteered to be a part of it by a mentor and friend. It is going to be a great opportunity for me to be involved in some leadership programs in the Church and I couldn't be more stoked about it. I do need your prayers to help this program to go off without a hitch. If you are a part of my Church and don't know what I am talking about, keep your eyes and ears pealed for more information. This is a great thing that the Church is starting up and I hope that it will help to engage those who are still a little hesitant in their walk with Christ. I just need for your prayer for a positive impact by me and by our Church to help hundreds of thousands of people that have not found the peace and joy that can be brought on by a relationship with God.

On the running front, I have decided not to do the 50k this year. With all of the craziness that is my life I didn't get the amount of training in that needed to be done and I am not even close to being ready. I am still going to do a 1/2 marathon and it should be a lot of fun. With God's grace and mercy hopefully I will be able to do it next year.

Hope that all is well in your lives.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

House Painting will be the death of me :)

2008-08-13T07:08:00.007-05:00

A couple of months ago my lovely wife and I decided that we were going to take a vacation. Now, if you know us this is something that we haven't done in nearly 4 years (not counting the time off for the babies, which is hardly a vacation). We picked a week and just decided to fly by the seat of our pants. We went camping for 3 days, which was quite the adventure with two kids under the age of 3 in a tent. With no plans and fairly decent weather in the forecast we also decided that it was time to finally paint our house. For those of you who know, we have been attempting to paint our house for nearly 4 months, but with the weather the way that it has been we haven't been able to. We got back to our house around noon on Sunday and set out on the journey to have a perfectly painted home.

It started off not all that bad. The weather was a little warm but we didn't realize that it was going to get much worse. We initially thought that we were going to spray on, but the sprayer said not to spray if the humidity is 75% or higher. Of course being in Iowa, in August, the humidity is 80%+, so roller here we come. The paint went on well, but with horizontal siding we had to use brushes to make sure we had an even coat on the bottom of the boards. We didn't figure that this portion was going to take quite as long as it did.

The temp continued to increase and at one point when I was driving to the gas station to get pop the tempurature at the bank said 112. That's right 112 and we are painting. The paint at this point was almost immediately drying. For those of you who have ever painted before you know that that means trouble for an even coat. To make a long story short, our one coat paint now turned into 2 or 3 in some spots.

During our "time off" we spent 6 days, with an average of 7 hours painting, trimming, hanging shutters and finally have something to be very proud of. The electrician that was working on the house next to us said that if we could make it through a project like this without killing each other, we were meant to be. I am proud to say that I am still sleeping in my bed with my wife and still married :)

On another note. During our vacation we did do a few fun things. We took the girls to the Science Center. I know, I know, what kind of nerds take their kids to a place to learn during a vacation? Well now you know two parents that will. We went to the Iowa State Fair (greatest fair in the world), walked around for a bit and went swimming. Overall, it was a very productive vacation and let the girls experience some new things, which is something that we can all say with the activities of the week.

Here is a picture of the finished product. The top picture is what it looked like when we purchased the home (minus my wifes superior landscaping skills and a new roof)

Weather Sucks

2008-07-22T07:45:00.004-05:00

So, if you know my wife, which most of you do, you know that she always likes to have projects around the house. That is just the way she is. Most of the time it really annoys me, but she is the love of my life and I have to do it for her. Anyway, we have been attempting to get our house ready to paint for nearly a month. We have the paint purchased, the house is sanded (yes I sanded the entire house using an orbital sander and yes it sucked), the windows and seems caulked, etc but the stupid freaking weather will not cooperate. UGH!!!! Why can't we just have a couple of nice days with little humidity where there is no chance of rain and it can even be 90 degrees as long as the other things fall in line. We have just spent a lot of time in the preparation that I would hate to see us do it and have something go wrong.

The weather has been really weird lately. From the tornadoes, the floods, air so thick you could swim through it and scorching temps. Oh well. Weather is one of the things in life that I can not control. Yes that's right, I can't control the weather.

The running has not been going that great lately. I didn't put anything about it last week, but I had a NASTY case of heat exhaustion/stroke. I went out with my group for a run called the "Coin Run." It sounds fun, but on the contrary. It is one of the worst runs I have ever done. It winds through DM through some very fancy, aka expensive, houses. It is an extremely hilly route, which I should probably get used to if I want to run Western States at some point in my life, but at this point it sucks. We were about 3 miles into the 7 mile course when I started to get really hot. This was to be expected since it was 85+ with 90% humidity and no wind movement. I told the group to go on and I would catch up. That's really not uncommon because I do like to take walk breaks to give myself some time to catch my breath. So on they went and I started to get really dizzy and chilly. Seems weird considering the conditions, but it was too real. As gross as this sounds, I also stopped sweating and producing snot. Because of this I knew that I was in trouble. I decided that I probably shouldn't run anymore and took every opportunity to squirt some of my water on my head to try and cool myself down, but nothing was working. I was running very low on water when I hit the 4 mile mark. I stopped walking and threw up a little. Not anything huge, but still puke nontheless. After I puked I thought that maybe I was ok. Boy, was I wrong. I kept walking to be able to get back to work when I leaned up against a tree and momentarily blacked out. I knew now that all I had to do was make it back to work, shower and that I would go home. 3 miles and about an hour later I finally made it back to work. Told my manager that I was leaving and caught an emergency shuttle home.

Now, I don't typically take naps but that day I had to. I drank probably 100 oz of water along with 64 oz of Gatorade and finally started to get the headache. I finally knew that I was going to be ok. Even though I knew that I would be ok, it was totally scary for a little while.

I decided to take a week off and had a good run yesterday. We got about 7 miles in and I actually felt really good. So the moral of the story is that I need to take more water when going on long hot runs. Noted.

Stay Strong, Run Long (and safe)
Tha Messenjah

Scary moments

2008-07-16T14:31:00.004-05:00

I know that as a parent you are supposed to understand that your kids are going to fall and get cuts and "owies" but it is one of the scariest moments when you get a call from your wife saying that she is on her way to the doctor because your daughter split her head open. I have fallen plenty of times and have numerous battle scars to show it, but it is so much different when it is your baby. I am a pretty strong person, but when it comes to my kids anything will send me into hysterics.

My wife called me at work yesterday wanting to know what she should do because Lil' Red fell at the daycare and cut her head open. My initial response was to call an ambulance. Obviously a huge overreaction on my part, but not knowing the extent of the injury I was freaking out. I told her to go to the ER because if it were serious I would rather have the ER docs take a look instead of having her sitting in an urgent care waiting room for an hour when she is bleeding profusely. All Mrs. Messenjah kept telling me was "You should have seen all of the blood. It was everywhere." This really didn't help, but I had to stay calm. Since I don't drive to work, I ride a van pool, I had to find someone to take me to the hospital in the midst of a panic attack.

When I got to the hospital, I found her hooked up to a crazy amount of wires watching Dora. The ER doc suggested that we get a plastic surgeon in to sew up the wound due to the size and complexity of it. It literally looked like she had fallen headfirst into a rock, but there wasn't anything in the wound, or sticking out, luckily. The doctor explained the situation and what was going to be done and gave us the option of leaving since it can get a little messy. We both decided to stay in there so that she wouldn't get scared. They then gave her medicine to put her out, which was more freaky than the wound itself. I can handle blood and guts, but to watch her eyes about made me cry. The were shifting back and forth, which the doctor assured us was normal. She looked like a little zombie. About halfway through they did have to give her another doze of the "sleepytime medicine" because she was starting to come out of it. When they finally finished all she kept saying was "I'm moving" "Momma" and laughing hysterically. I was kind of glad to see her react like this because I have seen some pretty nasty reactions to anesthetic.

After she was all finished, we had to hang out for a little while to make sure that she didn't have any negative reactions to the medicine. When we left we had to go get a prescription filled and said that she could pick out some soup because she couldn't eat any real food. She of course went right for the Dora Chicken & Shapes. When we went to pick up "Mini Me" all Lil Red wanted to do was play. She was back to acting like a normal kid. Phew!!! What a relief.

As minor as something like this is, it makes you realize how important your kids are to you and that you need to take advantage of every second that you can with them. Make them annoyed by the amount of hugs that you give them everyday and kiss them whenever you can. You never know when that call may come in that is about something different.

Here is what she looked like post-stitches (by the way she got 6)

A random gripe

2008-07-09T14:09:00.006-05:00

So, today was such a nice day I decided to take an extended lunch and go for a long run. I went out for the first long run in a very long time without my iPod so I really got to enjoy the sights and sounds of the city. One thing though that really sets me off is smoking on a running, walking, biking trail. I understand that you are outside and due to one of the best legislation ever passed in Iowa it is illegal to smoke in all establishments minus casinos, but there are people that are on this trail trying improve their lives and you keep blowing your smoke right in my face. AAAAAHHHHH!!!!! It ruins a perfectly good day/run when you have to run through 2-3 people standing on the sidewalk or walking on the trail puffing on their cancer sticks. Have some common courtesy for your fellow human being. If you want to pollute your lungs and your body with that crap, don't get me involved. I have had several family members killed by this silent killer and I don't want that stuff affecting me when I choose not to do it. Find an alley. Find a park bench away from the trails. Smoke in your car. Just don't do it where I have to run through your plume.

Now that is over with. Lots of really cool things have been happening. As you read above, I went for a really long today. I got 10 miles in w/out music. That's fantastic!!!! I haven't done a 10 mile training run without music in a verrrrry long time. It was nice to just get out and do it. I met a guy along the way that looked like he was going about my pace so I thought I would ask if he wanted somebody to run with. His name was Jason and he was an attorney in DM. It was kind of cool because he was wearing the DTD t-shirt from the first time that I did it (the 5k) and I told him that was my first race, ironically it was his too. I ran with him for a couple of miles before he turned back to go back to work. I love running with people that I have never met before. It kind of gives you a glimpse into their lives and why they are running. I love to see people that started running and have lost hundreds of pounds, quit smoking or lowered their blood pressure/cholesterol. It is really cool to see people get out and just do something.

Also this week we started VBS at the church we attend. I am hosting this year and have been told several hundred times how I have some "big shoes to fill" with the guy that did it last year but has moved on to another church. Monday night was a little nerve racking but once I got all of the bugs out of my system it has been a little easier. I also learned that kids can be VERY critical. Last night we did a skit and I had been deep sea fishing. I don't know how many kids came up to me and said "You didn't catch a fish" of course I had to stay in character and tell them that I had, but one kid came up to me and said "You're a liar!!! You didn't catch a fish. Your skin on that picture was different than you skin now and you had a plastic fish on the pole." I wanted to tell the kid that it was just a skit and make believe but I was caught completely off guard by his willingness to tell me off. I walked away bewildered and kind of hurt :) Oh well, kids will be kids i guess. Below is a picture of me last night. Like I said I was supposed to have been fishing all day and I am wearing some hot and rather tight waders to illustrate that. Thanks to Becki for the picture.

We are also finally starting to get most of our house ready to paint our house. Man, what a struggle that has been. From the 90 degree temps with 90% humidity and my unwillingness to go outside and do it, it has been an extremely long process. We are chipping, sanding, caulking and everything to repair the horrible job the last people did, but I think once we get all done it is going to look very nice. Mrs. Messenjah has picked out some beautiful colors. She is definitely the decorator/designer of our home. She does an awesome job.

So, that's about it. I should let you get back to whatever it is that you are doing. As always, Stay Strong Run Long.

Tha Messenjah

What a sweet life we have

2008-06-24T06:51:00.003-05:00

When you look at the title of this blog you really have to open your mind up to how bad life really could be and people that are living in absolute hell. Yesterday as I was walking in to work, with sitting at my desk all day on my mind, I saw a homeless man standing in front of Starbucks. My initial human response is to avoid eye contact and just keep walking. Which is what I did. As I crossed the street I tried to envision what this guy might have gone through to end up sitting outside of Starbucks, wearing no shoes asking people for money. I obviously don't know him and don't know his ambitions or his past, but a guy driving his Cadillac CTS (one of my favorite cars) comes out of Starbucks and just walks past like I did. I realized that this was an extremely arrogant and pompous gesture as I have been blessed with a job that pays well and I don't have to beg for money. I didn't have any money on me as I never carry cash or credit cards, so I did the only thing that I could and gave this guy my sandwich that I had made for lunch. I knew that I had some checks and could go somewhere and get a sandwich if I got hungry, but this guy couldn't. As I walked over to him I told him that I didn't have any money, but asked if he would like my sandwich. He spoke in a very low voice and I am not really too sure on what he even said to me, but he extended his hand. The Bible tells us that we should love our neighbor as ourselves and that you never know when you might be passing up the maker who is testing you to see what you'll do. I am reading an intereting book now that gave me a really good insight into what people go through and how we can help them. As I was reading it this morning the author pointed out that Jesus was homeless. That's right, the Son of Man who was sent here, by God, to die for us was homeless. He and His disciples often slept in boats and asked for a place to stay for the night.

As you read this you are probably sitting at your desk checking your email, your MySpace or Facebook and looking at your bank records. I realize that with record high gas prices and soaring food costs that times may get a little difficult, but just think, you are sitting at a computer reading this probably never truly realizing how good of a life we have. I am thankful everday for what I have. Each morning I wake up with a prayer and just thank God that I am being allowed to live another day. I wake up in a nice bed, brew my coffee, make my lunch, head off to work where I sit at a desk all day, go home, watch my big TV, go to bed and start all over tomorrow. We can all sit here and complain about how tough finances are but don't think about the people that have nothing. How many of us will go in to Starbucks and drop $5, $6, $7 without batting an eye, but when we go outside we walk right past someone who has nothing.

When I was driving downtown this morning I went past a bench that was being "rented" by a big financial corporation with their headquarters out of Des Moines. As I rode past there was something written on this bench that I can only assume was written by someone a little less fortunate. I make this assumption with the understanding that most people would be more apt to draw moustaches or something like that on an advertisement like this. It simply said "Jesus Loves YOU". Even though we have heard this statment since we were little, we don't always think about it in our age of instant information, E! TV, cell phones and iPods. Jesus really does love us. He and the Father have a plan for every one of us. Take a second today to really enjoy what you have and don't pass up those opportunities to help those in need. Even if you don't have much to give, something is better than nothing.

The running is going ok. I didn't write about Dam To Dam because I was a little disappointed. I ran it, I finished and both of my feet are still attached. My next goal is to really start hitting the training hard as my foot continues to heal. I still want to do this race during the fall and have finally made the decision to do the 50k instead of the 50 mile. It is going to be insanely challenging, but I am looking forward to it. I am going in with the thought of making it through and hopefully not concentrating too much on times. I hope you are all doing well. I will talk soon.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

The calm after the storm....

2008-06-04T07:28:00.006-05:00

With the rumbling of chainsaws, the groaning of tractors and the still of a once bustling small town I entered what was once known as southern Parkersburg, IA. I, like many of you, have been trying to keep an eye on what has been happening after one of the most destructive tornadoes ripped through a town of nearly 2,000 people destroying homes and lives.

A small group has formed in the company that I work for to act as a disaster response team and this was our very first assignment. I don't want to say that we have been waiting for something to happen, but the people involved have been itching to get out and help people that have recently effected by severe weather. With the heavy rains that have hit Iowa in the past couple of months causing flooding we all thought that we would be heading out to sandbag or clean up debris left by rising flood waters. We never really thought that our first assignment would be something that basically flattened a town.

We all have been watching the weather and news reports to see where we would be going and we knew that when the EF5 tornado hit this Northern Iowa community we would probably get the call. Exactly one week after the tornado hit, our team did get the notification that we would be making the trip. I hate to say that I was excited, but I kind of was just to get out and help. This would really be my first chance since being saved to get out and help others with open arms. I never really thought that I would see the destruction that this thing caused.

We have all seen news footage and thought "Man, I feel so sorry for those people" but have never really done anything about it. I am one of those people. Until the people that started this response team I have always been that way. I wasn't sure of what to expect when we went up there. It is almost not real until you actually experience it for yourself.

12 of us left Des Moines at 7:00 Monday morning to head up and help clean up where we were needed. It is nearly a 2 hour drive so we had some time to speculate about what we would be doing that day. As we pulled into the town, it was nothing like I had ever seen before. When you come in to town the first thing you see is a HUGE pile of garbage, debris and destroyed cars. As you go a little farther into town you see piles, upon piles of what used to be peoples homes. I know that I said this earlier in this paragraph, but it was nothing like I had ever seen before. After we found a place to park we went to the FEMA trailer to find out what our next step was. As we waited we all had a chance to look around and see just the massive destructive path that the swirling wind left in its wake. In the area that we were standing, there was 3 homes that were standing along with the clubhouse for the golf course. The homes that were left standing had broken windows, caved in roofs and debris embedded in the siding. There were foundations that looked as if homes had never even put put on them because they virtually exploded. As we were waiting, cars were pulling up to homes where people were filing in and out to salvage any of their belongings that had been spared.

After we waited for 15-20 minutes we were finally given our duty of cleaning out a field so that a farmer could get ready to replant his crops. We jumped on a make shift shuttle to be taken to the field. As we drove on a country road in an open trailer you get to see just a little bit more of what used to be a town. All of the trees had been uprooted, homes flattened and crap everywhere. We got to the farm where we were to begin and you can see right where the tornado stopped. In the field we were picking up shingles, pieces of siding, pieces of roofs, electrical boxes and bits of peoples previous life. It really didn't hit me until I picked up a boot from a doll how lucky most of the people are that didn't lose their lives. We found DVD's, CD's, home movies, books of all kinds, clothes, blankets, stuffed animals and the like.

We picked up trash and debris for a little over 6 hours that day. The people of this town could not have been more gracious and humble. These are people that just endured a tragedy that most of us will never experience and they still had smiles on their faces. Countless times they came up to us and just thanked us for being there. They didn't know us from the next person, but they wanted to make sure that we knew they appreciated us helping. We were told by the people from FEMA that because of the generosity of Iowans they were 9-10 days ahead of plan for clean up. They said that they don't remember the last time they saw a response from a community or state to a disaster like this.

As Americans it has been ingrained in our heads that we have to have the nicest stuff to show how successful or important we are. People spend their entire lives buying stuff to fill homes that they can't afford just to show off to their neighbors and friends. We listen to creditors tell us to spend, spend, spend. Don't worry about making a payment on this money we are loaning to you. You only have to make a 1% payment and we'll keep giving you money to buy things. What a load of crap. As I sat there looking around at all of this stuff that we were going to pick up and throw in a trailer to be burned it made me realize that all we really need in life is our faith, family and a place to lay our heads at night. All of this stuff is temporary. Matthew 6:19-21 says it best "Make no store of wealth for yourselves on earth, where it may be turned to dust by worms and weather, and where thieves may come in by force and take it away. But make a store for yourselves in heaven, where it will not be turned to dust and where thieves do not come in to take it away: For where your wealth is, there will your heart be." I know that I will never change the world with this blog, but I know that day I learned more than I ever have about myself and the way I live my life. It was a humbling experience that I have never been through and I think that I am truly changed for a very long time because of it. Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to tell you not to spend money and to buy things that you want, just don't let money become your God.

If you have been searching for a true purpose in life I suggest that you grabbed some boots, gloves and donate a few hours of your day to give back to some people. If you can't go to a place like Parkersburg to help, go volunteer at a homeless shelter, go sandbag in a river community, go to the guy on the street corner and ask if he would like to talk. Giving a little bit of yourself does not have to take much time or money. A lot of time it is free to give some time to someone who needs your help. Realize that living for today should not be your purpose in life. Your time here is limited. If you think that you don't have time to donate, look at how much time it takes to watch a movie or sit on the couch spacing off. You probably have a few hour. If you can look at you life and truly feel that you have no time, donate money. In a disaster like this, a little can truly go a long way. Forgo your Starbucks for a week and use that money to send to the Red Cross, give to your local homeless or battered women's shelter. It doesn't take much to change someones life, trust me I know.

Now I will get off of my soapbox and let you get back to your day. I hope that this blog entry will help you if you have been struggling at all with what your purpose is. Open up your Bible and really look. The answer is in there.

Stay Strong, Run Long

Tha Messenjah

I think that God has a sense of humor

2008-05-29T06:53:00.002-05:00

Last week while I was sitting in my basement on my computer I was thinking to myself "Your birthday is tomorrow. What is your calling?" I know, kind of a weird thing to think about with so many places I could go on the internet.

So during my nightly prayer I asked God to help me discover what my purpose is and how I can use some of my passions to find it. I wasn't asking for a lightning strike and a burning bush, I was just asking to help me find out what my true calling in life is. A couple of weeks ago I signed up for a daily devotional type of thing from a place called Teen Hope Line.com. I know, I know, 28 is not a teenager anymore, but this website was founded by the lead singer of Seventh Day Slumber and I love them. While I was at the concert a couple of weeks ago I signed up for the newsletter just as another resource to strengthen my walk.

I really haven't thought too much about my question to God in the last week, but I open my email this morning and there are two emails that I got last night. One from Teen Hope and one from the Wellness Ministry coordinator at my Church asking for volunteers to help with an obstacle course at our church picnic. Since I had signed up for the wellness ministry I figured that I should open that one first to see if it was important. The coordinator was asking for volunteers to work the obstacle course. I wasn't really sure if I was going to the picnic since gas prices are RIDICULOUS and we live a ways a way from the church. I then opened my daily bible lesson and it read as follows:

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” Matthew 25:21 (NIV)

“Well done.” I don’t know about you, but when I stand before the Most High God to see if I’m going to be welcomed into the Kingdom of heaven, that is what I want to hear! In this life, God gives us gifts, abilities, and opportunities to do great things by His Spirit and for His glory. There are people who think of salvation as nothing more than ‘fire insurance.’ Their lives are similar to a non-Christian, and they make almost no positive difference for eternity. That is no way to live, you’ll experience only a few of God’s many promises that way. Instead, why not do what God put you here for, and expand His kingdom? We aren’t all amazing athletes, actors, or extremely talented in the world’s eyes. However, we don’t play by the world’s rules. Besides, God has given each one of us gifts and wants us to use them as He instructs, for His glory. If we will seek God’s will and find out what He wants us to do, then He will lift you up in due time. Please don’t settle for just getting by; lead the way and others will follow your example of living. Aim to do God’s will for your life and make it your goal to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Now if that isn't a slap in the face to say, "You idiot. You better do this!!!" So of course, I respond saying that I wanted to help. But how crazy is that. Everyone always says that God works in mysterious ways and I really think that every time I ask for a sign of something that I should be doing, He really is listening. It may not be a life altering sign, but a sign none the less. Weird.

This weekend is D-T-D and I couldn't be more excited. My best friend and I talked game plans the other night and I am super excited he is doing this with me. I haven't really run much in the last 2 weeks (trying to recover from a cold) but did a 5 miler on Tuesday and felt great. Went out with a 8:15 pace for 5. I felt really good even though it was 50 degrees and raining like crazy. I think that I am ready. Actually, I know that I am ready because I woke up at 3:30 this morning thinking about it. Needless to say Starbucks might be calling my name this afternoon to make sure that I am awake at work.

Well, gotta run. Send good thoughts and prayers on Saturday morning between 7:00-9:00 am that I will run smart and safe.

Stay Strong, Run Long
Tha Messenjah

1 Week to go!!!!!

2008-05-22T13:41:00.003-05:00

Alright. The time has arrived. With one week until the Dam to Dam here is where I am at. Had a little set back in my training schedule late last week, much too long of a story so I will not even go into it. It is a work thing that upsets me, so enough said. I decided late Tuesday afternoon that I had to get out and get at least one more long run in before the race, so when I got home I threw on my gear and headed out. I had initially planned to just do another 10 miler and call it good, but when I got out I felt really good (albeit a little tired) and decided to keep going. I got back in to town, looked down at my watch and saw "11.80 m" and "1:53". FREAKING SWEET!!!!!!!! I think that I will be able to break my previous D-T-D time by almost 10 minutes. I called my best friend (besides my wife of course) last night (Wednesday) and found out that had also run the same distance at almost exactly the same pace. YES!!!! We are going to Git-R-Done and beat the crap out of it. If you can't tell, I am really excited.

Now that the race I look forward to every year is coming up, my next focus is deciding on a longer run for the fall. Here is where I need your help. There is a race in Wisconsin at the end of October called The North Face Endurance Challenge. Click on the link before this sentence to read all about it. I need your help in deciding which race I want to do. Now when I am talking about needing your help, I don't mean the 10k (6.2 miles) or half marathon (13.1 miles). I can run those any day. What I need from you is a little advice on the 50k (31 miles) or 50 mile. That's right, 50 miles. The longest run that I have done is the marathon (26.2 miles) and survived and worked a retail job right after it. So with that said, I could do the 50k probably pretty easily since it is only another 5 miles. If I am going to do these I would also like some suggestions on what charity to raise money for. I am going to try and do something like people who are wanting to donate would donate $1 or $2 for every mile I plan on running during the race. I really think that God is calling me to do this race, but He hasn't given me a clue on which one or who for. Please keep me in your prayers during my training and please look forward to some updates. If you would like to, give me a comment on here or if you have my email, shoot me message. I look forward to hearing from you.

Stay Strong, Run Looooooooooooooong,
Tha Messenjah

2008-05-09T07:25:00.004-05:00

So I haven't written on here for a while, but it is not because I have forgotten about the one or two people that read this. I have been insanely busy with family, work and all of the cool things that are happening in my life.

Last week I was listening to the radio on my way in to work and heard the DJ talking about a concert that was coming to a Church a few miles from our house and really wanted to win tickets to the show. As the DJ was talking he was saying that he had a few tickets to give away in a few minutes, but to my dismay I was just getting ready to head in to work. This station has recently changed their format at bit to "recruit" non-believers to listening to music that has a Christian spin. They have changed their name, call letters and slogan (if you live in Des Moines and listen to Christian music you know which station I am talking about) and one of the things that was supposed to disappear with the old station was the on-line stream. I am still a fan of this station and this is the only way that I can listen while I am at work. So I called in to the station to ask the DJ if there is a delay from a live broadcast to the stream. To make a long story short, he was impressed that people were listening on-line still and hooked me up with 2 tickets. SWEET!!!!!! That typically doesn't happen, having worked in radio previously, people were always calling wanting free stuff. It's kind of in our nature to want something that we don't have to work for. I was so appreciative of his generosity. I made a couple of calls to some people who I thought would like the show and all had their own plans. My wife recommended that I call her dad and ask if he would like to go. I was stoked when he accepted. He is a really cool guy and it was going to be fun to go with him.

When we got to the show I really didn't know what to expect. I had never been to a concert at a Church and one of the bands was pretty hardcore. I sensed my father-in-law getting really uncomfortable with the first band. They were NOTHING like the headliner, but a type of music that I personally enjoy. There were 3 really good bands that came on before the headliner that were all very good, but couldn't wait for them to get started. The band is Seventh Day Slumber and if you haven't heard of them click on their name to visit their website. They are really good and the singer has a great story of how he personally came to know Christ.

They played all of the hits that I know and a couple that I didn't, but the singer took time out of the show to really explain to us what Christ has done in his life. It was really neat to hear some of his experiences and where he got some ideas for songs. At the end of the show he encouraged people who were hurting, broken hearted and needing some spiritual guidance to come to the front of the room and pray with him. Now, I am in such a better place in my life than I have been in many many years and didn't know if I needed to go up. Out of the blue my father-in-law gets up and walks to the front. I was totally shocked and excited all at the same time. After I saw him get up I knew that God had made those other people have plans for a reason. God wanted my father-in-law to go with me. He wanted him to come a little closer to Him(God that is). I saw this as a great opportunity for me to share something with him that I had never shared with anyone. I got up myself and went to sit with him and support him with whatever he has been going through. Once the show was over, we gave each other a big hug and I think that I saw him tear up a bit (it might have also been the fog machine too :) ). I may be totally off base on this, but I really think that he got something out of coming up to go with me.

Anyway, other than that things have been good. Ramping up the miles in prepartion for D-T-D. We did a quick 8 miles yesterday. We ran a little different course than we had in the past. It was gorgeous out. 70+ and sunny. Perfect running weather.

The fam is good. Getting stuff ready for the day that I can truly show my wife how special she is and how much I appreciate the stuff that she does for me and the girls. She is a great mother and a great role model for our girls. Even though I give her grief about some of her "quirks" I hope that they grow up just like her. She is such a cool person and I love her so much.

Be prepared for some news about other things that are happening. I don't want to jinx anything that may be happening in the future. Don't get your hopes up, no more babies anytime soon :)

So gotta go. Stay strong, Run long.

One of the best weekends ever

2008-04-28T09:28:00.004-05:00

For the past 5 months I have been on a journey to really discover my true faith and where I feel God is leading me. It has been an extremely incredible experience that I can't even begin to explain. I started this trip a broken and beaten person and the people at my Church have really brought out my true potential and my love for Christ.

Late last week I got an email flier from our Church that was talking about the current series we are in and was talking about embracing eternity. Because I have been really engaged by this series and all of the good things that have been happening in my life, I felt intrigued to tell someone my story. Now, I wasn't sure if anyone actually even read the emails when you hit the "Share your Story" tab. I just figured that I could write something, hit send and it would be saved in an email bank. Shortly after that one of the pastors, whom I have come to know and trust in the last few months, emailed me back and said thanks for sharing my story. I thought that was kinda cool since he knew my problems from the get-go. I got another email from him a couple of hours later asking me I would be able to tell my story to the congregation during our service. I have seen this done a thousand times before, but he threw a little caveat into the offer. He wanted it LIVE!!!! WOW. Could I do this? I haven't spoken to a large group in a few years, let alone probably a couple of thousand people that belong to my Church. I graciously accepted and spent the next couple of days asking God if this was the right decision.

The weekend that I had went like this. Friday after work I came home, got the girls ready and headed out the door to my Men's Fraternity graduation. We dropped Lil' Red off at some friends house and took Mini-Me with us. We showed up, socialized for a little, ate a fantastic dinner and listened to so many peoples story about how Men's Fraternity and Women's Sorority has changed their lives. Both of these classes are life changes experiences and I am suggesting to everyone I meet that they need to take one of them. After the ceremony was over and I got a really cool gift for finishing the class, my mentor came up to me to introduce his wife and to give me a gift. I have never met his wife and she is really nice. He handed me a box that contained a Bible. This was not an ordinary Bible, but one that was geared specifically for Godly Men. What a cool gift. I have never had anything like this and it was really special to come from such a great person.

So the next day, we got up and ran some errands before I had to sit down and write what I was going to say for the service. T-minus 4 hours and counting. When I sat down I asked God "Please just give me the right words to say" and my fingers just started flying. Everything came out and it was over 3 PAGES!!!!! Ouch, Tom would be really mad if I rambled on for 3 pages :) I did some creative editing and got it down to just under a page. Phew. After all of the writing, editing, reciting, editing and printing I was down to about an hour to get ready and get to Church. At this point I was running on pure adrenaline because I was so excited. I got to Church, had some mic problems and gave my speech. I was a little nervous, but I think that doing it on Saturday was a great practice run for the big dance on Sunday. The mistake I did make though Saturday night was going home and playing the Wii that we borrowed until about 1:30 AM. OOPS.

I woke up on Sunday morning truly fired up to give my speech again. I got there and really had just an incredible time speaking to people, most of which don't know me, and just telling them about me. I got great feedback from my wife and a couple of our friends that were there and my one hope is that maybe, just maybe, I might have helped at least 1 person the way that I have been helped by so many at my Church. It was such an incredible experience that I hope to be able to have again. PRAISE GOD!!!!

So real quick about the running lately. It is going really well. I did a couple of long runs last week and did some rockin' sprints on Friday. I think that I am finally getting ready for D-T-D. I'll keep you updated. Stay Strong, Run Long!!!!

Where I am at right now

2008-04-24T15:09:00.003-05:00

So, sorry I haven't posted in a while (I don't even know how many people read this) but I have been really busy as of late. The weather is nice and work has been keeping me going at about 1,000 mph. A couple of things have taken place recently.

We finally got a new car. It is super sweet. It's a 2007 Dodge Caliber and rocks the house. We had to get a new car because my pride and joy 1996 Honda Accord finally was about to take a dive. It was such a good car, but had so many problems. We got a really good deal on it and have really enjoyed driving around in a really reliable car.

I have caught the bug again. The running bug that is. When I am at work running and going home to all of my girls are what I spend my time on. Don't worry. I am working, but while I am working I am listening to running Podcasts and looking at the pictures of my girls. They just make me smile.

I have been keeping to a pretty consistent training schedule for the Dam-To-Dam. I am doing anywhere from 5-6 miles/day with a group of awesome runners and have been going out on my own for some longer runs. I did 9 miles yesterday and actually feel really good. I ran on one of the hilliest roads in the entire city that I work and my quads really feel it. I think that D-T-D should be pretty easy this year since I have already trained for 2 marathons and am planning on going longer this fall. Speaking of that, I am thinking about doing a really cool run in October. It's called the North Face Endurance Challenge and takes place in Madison, WI. What is an Endurance Challenge you ask? Well, they basically have 4 choices for distances you want to run. You can do a 10k (6.2 miles), a half-marathon (13.1 miles), a 50k (31.2 miles) or a 50 Mile route. Yes, that's right 50 miles!!! I think that that is the one that I am choosing. I know, I know. YOU ARE CRAZY!!!!! But, we all have to have goals and this is one that I wanted to do before I turned 30 (in 2 years) and what better time than the present. I have a good training schedule in mind and am really excited about the chance to maybe do it. I'll post more about that as time goes on.

Speaking of excited. I got some really cool news last night. I submitted a synopsis to my church about my new journey as a born-again Christian and our pastor liked my story so much that he asked me to speak during our services this weekend. It is such an honor to be considered and I am really fired up for it. So I am asking anyone who may read this prior to 5:30 CST 04/26/08 that you pray for me to get through it with no hiccups. It is going to be an incredible experience to share my story with others in the congregation. Anyway, the run is calling me. Talk soon. Gotta run. Stay Strong, Run Long.

Running Update

2008-04-16T06:51:00.003-05:00

So after the nipple issue I decided to take a few days off from running and let my "areas" heal a little bit. We had a great weekend with family in town just kind of hanging out enjoying some nice weather for a change. Monday I got an email from a co-worker about heading out for a run. Gladly I accepted because I love to break up the monotony of running solo and run with a group. Even though most of these people are probably more fit and faster than I am, I went out with them. We started out running a course that I have never done before, but heard about. It's a route that was described as "a little over 5 miles" and "a little hilly." That should mean to mean closer to 1,000 miles and through the mountains. Figuratively speaking of course. So we head out. 50 degrees and beautiful. We start going at a decent pace. Enjoying talking and getting to know each other a little more as not everyone in the group knew each other. So we headed up a street that I had run before, but never at this pace. Let me remind you that I was in a group of people where the person that was leading the group hates to have anyone in front of her and recently placed 2nd in a race where the winner is going to the Olympic trials. Once we got up a pretty good size hill, she says "There are just a couple more small hills and then it is pretty flat after that." Again, I shouldn't have listened. To make a long story short, we hit quite a few significant hills and I was feeling some small pains in my hips and calf. No big deal. We finally finished 50:35 covering 5.6 miles. Not too bad of a pace overall. I got back to my desk, ate my lunch had some coffee and a little bit of Green Tea and thought to myself "Man, I actually feel really good after that run, maybe I'll go out again when I get home." I instantly became really excited. I made sure to get to the van stop extra early (yes, I ride in a van pool to save money and the environment), ran into the house, threw on my gear and took off. I wasn't sure on how much I was going to go but I knew that I wanted to put a few more miles in. About 2 miles in I thought "I can hit 11 today no problem." I kicked up the tunes and 43:31 later I hit another 5 miles. By this time though I had to get home and make supper. My wife and kids would be home soon and "How I Met Your Mother" was on that night. I couldn't believe it. I looked back at my training logs and I haven't done 11 miles since May 2007. Great way to start the 2008 campaign :)

To update you on my shoe drive, we finally finished the one at work and will be beginning one at Church hopefully in a week or so. I couldn't believe how much people showed they really care. About 3 weeks in, we had collected 75 pairs and I thought that we were doing really well. Once our month was officially over we collected over 300 pairs to ship. WOW!!!!! It was freaking amazing. I couldn't believe it. God is really working through me right now in fantastic ways and I praise Him for that. Below is a picture of the display that we are going to send to One World Running. Anyway. I hope that you are all doing well. I will definitely keep you updated on how things are going. PS - I am thinking about running a 50 mile trail run in the fall, so pray that I will make the right decision and be safe during my training. Stay Strong, Run Long.

Running in the rain and losing my nipples

2008-04-09T07:30:00.003-05:00

I couldn't resist the title. So, yesterday I was planning on going for a run, but because it was raining I was going to hit up the stupid treadmill. When I got down to the gym I guy that I have run a couple of times with said, "Hey, why don't you go out with us." I had looked outside prior to going to the gym and it wasn't raining that hard, plus I had some pants and a long sleeve shirt to stay warm since it was only 40 degrees. We went out and it really wasn't too bad. It obviously was raining, but nothing horrible. We were having some good conversations enjoying just being outside when I started to cramp due to the hard hills workout that I did a few days prior. I backed off and let everyone go ahead of me.

I finished a 5 miler in about 45:00. A little faster than my normal pace so that was good. I got back to the gym to shower and get ready for a meeting that I had. I showered and had the normal nipple irritation that I usually get after a run but really didn't think anything about it. Went to my meeting and noticed that my shirt was a little damp. I got back to my desk and thought "Man, why is my shirt still wet" Instantly I thought, "Oh crap. I bet I am bleeding." Sure enough, I look inside my shirt and I had 2 giant blood stains on my undershirt. Luckily enough I was wearing a black dress shirt so no one could see. This was just about the time that I was getting ready to leave and of course the day that this happens I had a 15 minute walk to catch my van. Did I mention that I was wearing a backpack that went right around the nippular region?

For those of you who might not know what I am talking about with the bleeding nipples. When you exercise you obviously sweat. Me, I sweat a ton. When you are wearing shirts that don't wick sweat away (like cotton) or are wearing clothes that don't breathe (my mistake yesterday) the moisture will make your skin very soft and can cause some irritation. When the irritation is coupled with rubbing of clothing you can sometimes get blisters or, in my case, nipples that bleed and fall off :)

Hope all is going well. Remember to Stay Strong, Run Long and protect those nipples

Baptism and much more

2008-04-07T07:51:00.003-05:00

So, I haven't posted for a while and I don't really know why I haven't. So let me update on a few things. Last Wednesday I experienced one of the most amazing things of my life. I have had the pleasure to have experienced the birth of both of my girls and I really feel that this was almost like me experiencing my own birth. It was a rebirth of my spiritual life and faith. It was INSANE!!! I went into this without really knowing what to expect, but came out a changed man. I prayed before I wrote my testimony and just asked God to give me the strength to write from the heart, be truthful and lay it all out there. When I started writing, I found that I didn't want to stop. The words were coming out of me and I could have rambled on for hours. I was working with passion and a clarity that I have never experienced before.

We showed up to Church early, like usual, with my family and a few friends to join in the moment. I am really glad that I had them there to be a support system. It was me, one other adult and 2 children that would be experiencing this together. These people I have never met, but it was really cool to know that they were there for the exact same reason that I was. I am not sure how many people were at the service that night. I could see the people that I came with and spotted a few people that I recognized from church, but I wasn't really paying attention to who all was there. This was my time to speak directly to God with others listening. I don't know how many people payed attention, but at that moment I really didn't care. This was between me, my friends and family, the church and God. It was an incredibly powerful experience. I read my testimony, handed it over and kissed my old thoughts, beliefs and values adieu. I emerged from the water a completely new and changed man. I stood up and realized, "I did it." I was so scared, shocked, nervous, questionable and confused going in to the experience, but knew that I was different after it. It was awesome!!!! God is truly an amazing being and there is no way that anything I will do from here on out will compare to the moment I was truly forgiven for my sins, transgressions and actions. The first person I noticed was my wife and was so proud that she has stood with me through many hills and valleys and knew that this was a huge step forward in our marrige and our commitment to each other. When I stepped out of the baptismal I was greeted by someone who has become a great influence on my life and has become a great friend. Even though I felt bad for getting him wet, he gave me a big hug. It was awesome to have him there, because I thought that he was going to be out of town. Afterward I also realized how many people were actually there to see me take this step. They all came up and gave me hugs and told me how proud of me they were. Not only were my family and friends proud of me, I really was proud of myself. I have done so many stupid things in my life and this was one moment that I can truly say that I did something good for myself. Wow, what a blessing.

So now that this is over :) I found out of Friday that I am going to be hosting our VBS (vacation bible school) in July at our Church too. A friend of mine that I used to work with is on the VBS board at church and threw my name in to the mix for potential people host and I graciously accepted. It is going to be so much fun and I can't wait. We also got a new car this weekend. It's a 2007 Dodge Caliber and it freakin rocks. It is far from a Mustang, Corvette, Yukon or something really cool, but is very nice.

Now that I have finally updated this, I hope that God will bless you all this week. Get out and enjoy what, at least in the Mid-West, is supposed to be a nice week. I plan on getting out and running, but I am swamped at work right now. I really need to step up my training. Less then 2 months before D-T-D and the longest that I have gone out for has been 7 miles. OOOOPPPPPSSSS!!!!!!!!! Anyway have a great week. Stay Strong, Run Long

God is speaking to me.

2008-03-31T08:41:00.006-05:00

So, no running posts for today but I did want to share something that happened to me last Thursday. I had to go to an appointment in kind of a shady part of town and I decided to go a little early. If you know me, you know that I like to be early to everything. So I drive in to the parking lot and as I was coming in I noticed that someone was in the dumpster. As I got a little closer I noticed that this person was throwing cans outside to take and turn in for money, I assumed. As I parked my car I decided that I needed to ask God what I should do for this person. I felt like I had to do something. I have been given so much. I have been blessed more than most people in this world and here is a guy that, for one reason or another, is in a dumpster digging for cans to redeem to buy something. I had a moment with God where I just said, "If I am supposed to do something, tell me what I am supposed to do."

This was right around lunch time and I had brought my lunch with me for the day and just figured that I would eat it after my appointment. But, I really think that God was speaking to me and told me to give this man part of my lunch. I had 2 pieces of pizza, ate one and took the other to the man. When I approached him, I think that he thought he was getting into trouble for being there. I approached him slowly and just said "I have an extra piece if you'd like it." I handed it to him, told him "God Bless you" and walked away. I don't remember if he even said thank you, I think that he might have, but felt overcome with joy for giving up something as little as a slice of pizza. I know that things like this should be second nature as Christians, but we often see others that are sleeping on the streets or living out of trash cans as the scum of the earth. I know that I am guilty of it. I think though that now that I am committing my life to following the footsteps of Christ that I need to do more. I need to give more. I also know that giving shouldn't be selfish, but I felt such a powerful emotion when I did this.

Anyway, I walked in to my appointment and heard some news that I have been waiting months to hear. I walked out knowing that I did the right thing and was rewarded for it. God is so loving and caring that I know he was watching over me as I gave something to someone a little less fortunate. To make the story a little weirder, as I was driving back home I was listening to something that I like to listen to every day called The Daily Audio Bible. It is a powerful tool that has really helped me to grow in my relationship with Christ. When I was listening to it, I heard a verse from Luke 6:20-26, and I am paraphrasing, blessed are those who are hungry as they will be well fed and then later in the verse it says that those who are well fed will be made hungry. I heard and read that as being, if you get stuck in your "riches" something will happen and you will lose it all, but if you don't have much and give of what little you have you will be rewarded handsomely. I don't know if I am reading into this particular verse because of the experience that I had, but it spoke to me like no other verse that I have ever read. I have had moments where after a verse I can look back at my past and relate, but this one spoke to me. It is truly incredible. I know that as a Christian, every situation happens for a reason, but this one really hit home and made me realize that God is truly trying to communicate something to me. He is obviously calling me to a higher calling and hopefully one day that calling will reveal itself. I can't wait for that day.

I also realized how God is testing me. For those of you who don't know, I quit drinking about 5 months ago and really have been doing pretty well with it. I haven't been faced with too many temptations other than the occasional "Hey, have a beer." Which I politely turn down, but this weekend was one of the biggest tests of my strength, courage and determination. I went to a wedding for a friend of ours, whose parents are very well off. When I went I figured that there would be alcohol available and kept telling myself that I was going to have to be strong, but never knew it would be this difficult. We showed up to the rehearsal supper and there was an open bar. Anything that I wanted for (the best price) FREE!!!!! So many times I could hear Satan saying, "just one, it won't hurt to have just one" but I stayed strong. Then after the rehearsal supper, we were invited to the home of the bride's parents. Did I mention that they are well off and like to drink? We show up and guess what is there too, 22 bottles of different liquors. Many of which I really enjoyed and others that I had always wanted to try. I thought, "OK, I got through the rehearsal dinner without a problem. I can do this too." After about 30 minutes and 3 Cokes I had to excuse myself because it was getting too intense. Now, I have never been diagnosed as an alcoholic or anything like that, but I am really trying to make some positive changes in my life and this is one of them. When I excused myself ,I had to make a phone call to my friend Joe, who is also joining me on the venture of no alcohol. It was encouraging calling him and just talking about it. He made me realize that I have come quite a ways without it and that I don't need it. It was really nice to talk to him about it, since he is the only one that I truly think understands the struggle and I thank him for being there and checking back with me. So I went back in to the party had 2 more Cokes and we left. Again, another HUGE sense of accomplishment. The next day was the wedding and the situation was the same, but I really asked God for strength to make it through without those intense feelings of temptation. He listened and I was able get by with few problems. Big High Five to the Big Guy. We are a great team!!!

Wow, so this was a long post and a glimpse into where I am at right now. I am getting baptized in 2 days and am so excited for what is to come. I am going to have some very dear friends and family members join me and am really pumped to begin my walk with Christ anew. Keep me in your prayers over the next few days as I prepare for this glorious occasion. I haven't been procrastinating with my testimonial, but really haven't found what God wants me to say just yet. I will probably be up until 2 Wednesday morning writing, editing, writing, and editing to get across what I really want to say.

I should let you all get back to whatever who were doing. So as I always end this blog, with something that I stole from someone along the way, and something that is a metaphor for my new journey. Stay Strong, Run Long.

Rest Day

2008-03-26T14:56:00.002-05:00

What a past couple of days!!!! My Easter went really well. I wasn't able to get out and run over the weekend though. I forgot my shoes at work. OOOOPPPPS!!!! We had a really good time back home. It is nice to get back and enjoy time with our family since we don't get back all that often. I think "Red" overdosed on candy though. She had a major crash in the car and when we tried to bring her in to the house to put her to bed, she was like a cooked noodle. She couldn't stand or anything. Sad, but kind of funny all at the same time. It was also nice to have a conversation with my wife's maternal grandmother about God. She has always been a huge supporter of my spiritual journey and it was nice to have a more in depth conversation with her than I have ever had or been comfortable having.

When I got back to the office on Monday though, I was really excited to get out and go for a run. After all of the food that I consumed over the weekend, I kind of needed to. I was watching the weather all morning to decide whether or not I would go out. I decided I would and for the first 2.5-3 miles I thought I was going to have my face, legs and arms amputated because they were going to have frost bite. It was wicked cold since I was wearing shorts. I know, I know. That's my fault, but this is my site so everyone should have a little pity on me :) Once I finally started to warm up though it was a great run. A friend let me borrow her Garmin 205 and I decided then and there that I need one. I knew step-by-step what my pace was and how far I had gone. It is incredible. I think that is why I am always so shot after some of these runs, because I don't know my pace because I fail to mark things out. Anyway, I went 7 miles and felt phenomenal. I did it in 1:06. Pretty good for only my third time out this year.

The next morning I woke up and was HURTING!!! Oh well, it was a good hurt. One of the guys in my running group really wanted to go out yesterday, so we stapped on our shoes and hit the cement and it was cold again. I don't think that we can win. There was 15-20 mph headwinds and fried my quads. I was definitely shot after that run. We went 5 and that was enough for me.
I decided to take today off to recover a bit. I am hoping to make this a really high mileage week to get back into shape. I have actually lost 6 lbs since last Monday just because I am starting to feel really good about running again. It is really exciting

I am thinking about starting another running group though. I was thinking about starting something up at Church, but don't know how well that would go. I don't know how many people are runners or how many are as ambitious to become an Ultra Runner as I am. You know the "You know you're a redneck..." jokes, a friend of mine sent me this list that I just have to pass along. For those of you who have no idea what an Ultra runner is, they are people that run races that are further than your traditional 26.2 mile marathons. They are mostly run on trails and are extremely intriguing to me. I'll end with the list. Have a great rest of the week.
Stay Strong, Run Long

"You know you're an Ultra Runner If...

You wonder why they don't make all running socks a dusty brown color.
You have more dirt on your shoes than in your garden.
You have more buckles than belts.
You postpone your wedding because it will interfere with your training.
6am is sleeping in.
Your feet look better without toenails.
Your idea of a fun date is a 30-mile training run.
You're tempted to look for a bush when there's a long line for the public restroom.
You don't think twice about eating food you've picked up off the floor.
You develop an unnatural fear of mountain lions.
When you can recite the protein grams by heart of each energy bar.
You don't even LOOK for the Porto-sans anymore.
Your ideal way to celebrate your birthday is to run at least your age in miles with some fellow crazies.
Your ideal way to have fun is to run as far as you can afford to with some fellow crazies.
You know the location of every 7-11, public restroom, and water fountain within a 25-mile radius of your house.
You run marathons for speed work.
You have more fanny packs and water bottles and flashlights than Imelda Marcos has shoes.
You visit a national park with your family and notice a thirty-mile trail connecting where you are with the place your family wants to visit next, which is a 100-mile drive away, and you think "Hmmmm".
Someone asks you how long your training run is going to be and you answer "seven or eight ... hours".
Your weekend runs are limited by how much time you have, not by how far you can run.
You always have at least one black toenail.
You buy economy-sized jars of Vaseline on a regular basis.
You tried hashing, but felt the trails were too short and easy.
You think of pavement as a necessary evil that connects trails.
You rotate your running shoes more often than you rotate your tires.
You really envied Tom Hanks' long run as Forest Gump.
You carry money around in a zip lock bag because store clerks complained that your money's usually too sweaty.
Any time a plain old runner talks about her aches and pains, you can sympathize because you've already had that at least once.
You don't need to paint your toenails; they're already different colors.
You start planning the family vacation around races, and vice-versa.
You become a quasi-expert on different detergents so as to not "hurt" your tee shirts.
You wear t-shirts based on if you've had good work outs when you've worn them before.
You walk up the stairs and run down them.
Peeing in the toilet seems unnatural.
You start wearing running clothes to work so you're prepared for afterwards.
Running trail is better then sex. (even if you don't get any)
Vaseline isn't just for fun anymore.
When the start of a marathon feels like a 5K and you're wondering "Why is everyone in such a rush? Where the ##@@**!! is the fire?"
As an infant you were dropped on your head.
Nobody recognizes your power T's. Met a guy at the market the other day who was wearing an AR50 T. So was I. I gave him a hearty, "Ta-da." He said, "Oh yeah, I tell people we were all acquitted and the charges were dropped."
You sign up for a 10K and
you strap on your fanny pack because you never know where the aid stations are.
you bring your own drinks.
you bring potatoes and salt.
you start fast and a six year old passes you.
you are the only one walking the up hills.
you run it a second time because its not far enough to call a training run (and you were racing the first time through).
you are the only one around who is eyeing the bushes THAT way.
you punch the lap button on your watch instead of the stop button at the finish.
When "NEXT GAS 36 MILES" signs start sounding like tempting runs.
Your pedicure kit includes a pair of pliers.
Your number of toes to toenails doesn't match.
You drink from a water bottle at the dinner table.
You consider the mold and mildew in your bottles extra electrolytes.
You just found out Poison and Oak are words by themselves.
You see a 1 quart water bottle colored like an Advil bottle, and don't realize that it's not in fact an Advil bottle.
You know you're married to an ultrarunner when Valentine's gifts come from Ultrafit.
You know you're married to an ultrarunner when she helps you up and says, "Come on, suck it up, keep moving!" and you know she means it in love.
You know you're an ultrarunner when a prospective employer asks for a photograph and all you have is race photos.
You know you're an ultrarunner when the races you enter end in a different area code. -and pass through several different Zip codes enroute.
You know you're an ultrarunner when your crew tries to keep you motivated by saying,
"You're in second place and only 6 hours behind first with 25 miles to go!"
You know you're an ultrarunner when you go to your 8:00 a.m. college geology class and you can use the salt crystals, still caked on your glasses frames from your early morning run, in your talk on the category of sedimentary materials called evaporites (and I'm not making this up).
You know you're an ultrarunner when, on the night of a bad thunderstorm and downpour, you ring for a cab, and your announcement that this is the *first time* you're not getting home under your own steam causes a stunned silence in the office.
You bother to argue about (discuss the meaning of) what an UltraRunner is!!!
when you don't finish on the same day as the winner.
your dogs can drink out of water bottles
When you meet the opposite sex you see:
A possible crew.
A possible pacer.
A possible search and rescue team.
A possible race director.
A possible source of race entry fees.
You ask advice of hundreds of people on a list, looking for answers you have already determined to be correct, taking hold of only those, and running with 'em.
Your wife asks you the morning after your first 50 miler if you're still planning on that 100K in five weeks, and you say "Sure!"
You strap on your water bottles and walk the hills... in a 5 K race and consider that your 10 minute pace is a blistering pace.
People praise you to the high heavens for being able to finish a marathon, and you feel insulted.
You do a triathlon and it is your RUN time that is slower than the years when you specialized in triathlon.
You are told *not* to run another marathon during the next few months (because that would be bad for your health), and you really follow that advice - by immediately sending off the entry form for your next 50/100 miler.
Somebody asks about the distance of an upcoming race and you, without thinking, say, "Oh, it's just a 50K."
You're running a marathon and at mile 20 say to yourself, "Wow, only 6 more miles left, this is such a great training run!"
You know you are a clumsy ultrarunner when after running headfirst into the trail for the third time get up and continue running even though you are bleeding and covered in maple syrup where your gel flask exploded and you have another 20k to go.
You go for an easy 2 hour run in the middle of a Hurricane and think it is fun to get wet, muddy and run through the rivers that were once trails.
You get to the 81 mile point of a 100 miler and say to yourself, "Wow, only 19 miles left!"
You try to tie double knots in your Oxfords.
You pass a swamp towards the end of a run and think 'How bad could it be?"
Livestock salt blocks look good after a run.
You're embarrassed that you've only done 50K's...
Your wife/girlfriend/significant other asks you if you want to have sex on any particular night and you respond with:
"sorry, I don't have time, I have to go running"
"sorry, I'm too tired, I just went running"
"sorry, I would rather go read all my messages from the ultra-list"
You go down a flight of stairs, uh, backwards, after an ultra and everybody laughs.
No one believes you when you say "never again".
You refer to certain 100 mile races as "low-key."
You number your running shoes to distinguish old from new, since they all look dirty.
Prior to running a difficult race, you check to see if local hospitals and urgent care centers are in your PPO.
The only time major household projects get done is in a taper or race recovery.
Everything in your life, everything, is organized in different sized zip-loc bags.
You call a 50-mile race "just another training run".
You think a 100-mile race is easier than a 50 miler because you don't have to go out as fast.
You say, "Taper? Who's got time to taper? I have a race coming up this weekend."
You're tapering/recovering, and you'd rather drive 50 miles to watch Ann Trason's heavenly running style for 20 seconds than the Super Bowl.
You have to rent a car to drive to a major event because you and your pacer own stick shifts and neither will be able to drive them on the return trip.
You actually DO drive a stick shift home with a severely pulled left hamstring
You meet someone of the opposite sex on the trail of a 100 and all of conversation is about what color is your urine, can you drink? and were you able to dump.
Ya know you're and ultra runner when a girl changes her tank and her bra in front of you and all you do is take another drink of water, look at your watch, get up and tell your pacer "Let's hit the trail."
On a long drive you see the road signs listing various mileages to different places and think of how long it would take to get there on foot rather than by the car your driving.
You've started a race in the dark, run all day, and finished in the dark (if your lucky).
Your non-Ultrarunning running friends look at you strange when you tell them that 10:00/Mile is a fast pace for a 100 mile race (not to mention most ultras).
You don't hesitate to lie down in the trail (anywhere) when you are falling asleep on your feet during the early morning hours on the second day of a 100 miler; and it feels so comfortable.
Finally...
You know your an ultrarunner when you actually sit down and read all of the postings about, "You know your an ultrarunner when..." and can laugh and relate to all of the comments.

http://www.ultrunr.com/youknow.html

Dam-To-Dam here we come!!!

2008-03-20T07:35:00.003-05:00

So something was pointed out to me this morning that I didn't even realize. The D-t-D is in 10 weeks. Man, that seems really soon for some reason. Maybe it's because I haven't registered yet :( I know, I know. I am supposed to be the leader of this group and I haven't done it yet. Don't worry. It'll happen, I just haven't really been on the ball lately.

I realized yesterday how crappy my mood is when I don't work out or run. I knew that I was going to be doing a group run and wanted to make sure that my legs were fresh from my sprint intervals on Tuesday. I didn't wash my clothes the night before or do any of my normal routine and I think that I realized it when I woke up. I didn't really have any thing to look forward to yesterday except for coming to work and I was bummin'. I get to work and I was pissy. I got off work and I was pissy. I got home and I was pissy. It is really strange that when you get used to running how if you don't do it your world goes into a tailspin. I don't mean to get like this, but WOW. I was a b**ch yesterday. Today is a different day though. I had a good breakfast. I woke up to my beautiful wife and our littlest sleeping in the bed right next to me and realized how lucky and blessed I really am.

I am ready to go today though. One of the guys from our group and I are going out. I am hoping to do 5, but we'll see how he is feeling. I can go out and take some walk breaks just to keep my legs fresh, but I don't know how excited he is about that idea. We'll have to see. I am not used to running with other people. Running is such a personal experience. You do it for your own reasons, whether that be to lose weight, fight boredom or because you blessed with the ability to do so. I was not built with any athletic ability. Hence the reason why most of my times suck!!! I am really hard on myself when it comes to this stuff. I know that I shouldn't be, but I see all of those people running 7-7:30/miles and it really annoys me. Why can't I do that? I know why, It's because I like to eat. I love sweets and crap. I have been trying to eat better, but man it sucks. We have so many "snacky" foods around the house and I am married to someone who genetically has a faster metabolism to break down the stuff that we eat. Hopefully our kids get her genes for that and her brains. I just need to get on the horse again. Now that it's spring maybe that will be my kick in the pants to do it. Winter sucks!!!!

So for those of you who are still reading after all of that. I will say to you, unless I have an epiphany that I just need to share I probably won't post until after Easter. Take this time to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Savior. This is the time of the year that defines our relationship with our creator. He sent His son to die for our sins so that our bodies will be washed free of our sins. If you get a chance, this is the time of the year when you should go out and rent The Passion of the Christ if you don't own it and remind yourself of what Jesus endured to save his followers. It's a great time of the year to be with family. Take some time to celebrate with them and realize that the Easter bunny is just another way to celebrate a holiday that celebrates our Jesus. Don't think that I won't be taking our kids to see the Easter Bunny, we will. But, I am also going to remind my daughter of the real reason to celebrate. This should be the time of the year when believers should explain to non-believers that there is life, salvation, forgiveness and righteousness available with a belief and following of God's word. My eyes have really been opened by this realization and I couldn't be in a much better spot in life, by realizing how great life can be when you walk in the shoes of Jesus.

Anyway, see you after the holiday. Stay Strong, Run Long.

What a great life

2008-03-17T07:30:00.004-05:00

I just have to share what happend this weekend. This has nothing to do with running, sports, work or even me. It has to do with my wife. My wife and I had one of those talks that you hope one day you can have. Where you lay out your plans for your life. It was one of those talks where you confess to your significant other your most sincere appreciation, love and admiration for them. I have always been in love with my wife, but after this weekend I truly believe she is truly my best friend and the love of my life. I discussed things with her this weekend that I don't know if I ever have before. I am such a good place right now spiritually, that I am not afraid of hiding my beliefs from anyone. I am truly on a mission to be a messenger of God, or you might call me the Messenjah :)

I have been so broken in the past and she has always stuck by me. I have done a lot of bad things and she has forgiven me. I can only hope to be half of the loving, caring, nuturing person she is. There is my confession of my love for my wife!!!

Anyway, no running this weekend. More running around doing stuff all weekend. We have a wedding to attend in a couple of weeks and we are trying to get all of that stuff taken care of. From tanning, to dress fittings and the like.

This week is one of the best weeks of any God fearing person and this is my call to you to celebrate it. Jesus was sent here by our Father to die for us. This is a time for sorrow and celebration for everything that we have. Jesus was truly the living image of God and he suffered so we don't have to. Take time this week to reflect on the things in life that we have. I'm not talking about the worldly, but the love that we are experiencing from someone who we won't meet until we die. If you have been hurt, wounded, scarred or angered in the past it should mean nothing when you realize what our Saviour endured to save us. I learned this weekend in our Church service that 82% of all people that are asked to attend Church will. I am publicly asking, "Will you go to Church with me this weekend?" You may not be able to attend my service, but please take time this weekend to really learn what true love is and go to church with me.

With that said. Please remember to take time for yourself this week. I won't be able to get out and run much this week since I have about 3,000 things to do with work, but I hope to get out at least 2 days. Alright. See ya on the flipside. Stay Strong, Run Long.

Spring has Sprung

2008-03-13T07:02:00.004-05:00

Ok so sorry I haven't posted in a few days, but it has been a crazy last couple of days. We went back home this last weekend to hang out with the fam and my wife had to go to a wedding shower for a friend from college. I hate the drive, but I love to see our family. They don't get to see the girls that often and it is so much fun when they do get to see them. Our oldest loves my sister-in-laws boyfriend. She thinks he is hilarious.

I have been trying to be much better about my diet since the D-t-D is in about 2 months and I really have to hunker down. It is so hard when my dept has so many food days and people just bring food most of the time for no reason. "Hey, I was on time to work today. Have some delicious Casey's breakfast pizza". That stuff is so good and really difficult to control myself from eating 1, 2, 3 or 4 pieces. I have been really good without all of the sugar, but it has really been a struggle. I realizing again how addictive food can be. I find myself CRAVING sugar throughout most days. I love Mt. Dew and could probably live on that and chocolate. I sound like such a girl :)

The running is going great. I had an awesome run last week on the TM and actually went outside on Tuesday of this week. I think that it might have been a little pre-mature to go out since there was 30 mph winds, but hey it was 40 degrees. It was awesome to get out and really get, at least partially, back into the swing of things. I have been in a little funk lately with my exercise program and getting out and doing it helps so much. I went out yesterday (Wednesday) too and it was so much better. My problem though is that it takes a few weeks of consistent running outside to really get used to doing just that, running outside. The treadmills are a good way to keep up fitness, but give you an extremely false sense of mileage. I can do 7-8 miles on a TM, but going outside and 5 seems like such a task. I know it will get better, it does every year.

My shoe drive at work is really starting to take off. We started on Monday and I have been impressed with the results so far.

In my spiritual life, I don't know if I have posted this or not but I think that God has really been speaking to me lately to make some changes in my life and I have decided to be baptized again on April 2. I have been in such a spiritual funk for the past few years and I know that it is a time to come back to the maker for guidance. Our Lord is such a wise being and I am so excited to give my life, heart and soul back to Him. I know that my faith will probably make some of my friends uncomfortable, but I know that if they are my true friends they will support my efforts and my commitment. I have been so blessed with some accepting friends and family and hope to bring them on this journey to the kingdome with me.

Anyway, until next time. Stay Strong, Run Long

A great run, finally!!!

2008-03-07T12:52:00.004-06:00

So today, I was bound and determined to have a good run. I wasn't too sure on how it was going to go because the littlest one was up for most of the night last night and I couldn't sleep. I am running on probably 4 maybe 5 hours of sleep right now. I also wasn't sure on how it was going to go since people in the office brought in bagels and cinnamon rolls (two of my favs) and I couldn't resist.

So I get down to the gym and literally I am the only person in there. It was actually kind of nice. I was hoping that I could go one day without Skippy McHopps-a-lot jumping on the TM right next to me since there were 8 others available. So, I was 10-15 minutes in when who walks in.....That's right Skippy (not his real name, obviously). Which treadmill does he pick you may ask? That's right the one right next to me. I gave this guy this nickname because he is one of these runners who runs only on his toes and takes these HUGE gallops and makes crashing sounds when he hits the belt. There is a thud and belt skip every time he takes a stride. When he is running he looks like a hopping monkey. I know that is really not nice to say, but it is soooooo true. Anyway, I didn't want to get out of my zone just because this knucklehead jumps on so I crank one of my favorite Christian Screamo bands The Chariot since that usually keeps me pumped. Now I am really starting to get into a rythym.

Skippy calls it quits and my run just keeps getting better. Once I saw "57:00" come up on the display I couldn't believe my eyes. I had gone 57 minutes and didn't want to kill someone. So I crank up the speed and to my amazement I went 7.25 miles and felt great. This is the first run this has happened since the marathon last fall. It was phenomenal. I know it is God's way of telling me to get my act in gear and start training for my Fall 50K. I don't know when or where just yet, but I will do one and be much stronger than the marathons I have done so far.

So, we are in March and I am getting so annoyed by the TM. Keep praying that good weather will come soon to the central part of the US. Hopefully I can get out next Tuesday, since it is supposed to be 50 degrees and I will be able to give you a report on my first outdoor scamper this year. Alright. Gotta go, peeps.

Stay strong, run long

Good stuff all around

2008-03-04T15:17:00.006-06:00

Wow, what a day!!! Here's what happend. I began my with receiving some great information about a collection that I am starting at work. Let me tell you a little about it.

It is a shoe collection for a great organization out of Colorado that collects shoes for kids and adults in Africa, Central America and other far flung regions of the world. They take them in, wash them, disinfect them and ship them out to different communities throughout the world for underpriveledged individuals that can't afford something as simple as a pair of shoes. Shoes are something that we really take for granted. These people's wellfare depends on shoes that they can't afford. If they don't have food, they can't go to school or work. These are human beings that need our help. I have been in contact with the organizers for a couple of months to try and get something started at work, but it is finally materializing and I couldn't be more excited. If you want some more info about the organization visit http://www.oneworldrunning.com. These are awesome people that are looking for a way to supply communities with something that we may throw away once we have hit our 500 miles or so.

Anyway, I found out when I got to work today that we are going to be starting the collection next week and it will run for about a month to see how it takes off. Please pray that it works out. This is something that I have been putting a lot of energy into to get off of the ground and it is finally starting to go. People are really excited and I would like to see it be a success.

Secondly, I have been organizing a group to run Iowa's Distance Classic, Dam-To-Dam at the end of May and had a huge breakthrough with one of the group members. She is a person that I have come to know through her desire to start running. She is a smart, bubbly, infectious person to be around and was excited about doing it. She approached me last week after following the training schedule for a couple of weeks and wanted to know if she could get a training schedule for the 5k instead of the 20k. She has been following the schedule pretty closely. Doing the cross training and such, but she was concerned because she didn't know if she was going to hit this weeks long run goal. I told her to scale back if she needs to. I think that she was pretty receptive to it. Then I overheard her talking to a couple of people today, telling them that she did 4 miles and was going to go for 5 but didn't quite make it. I was so shocked to hear it. Not that I didn't think that she could do it, but that she did it. 4 miles is a huge milestone for someone who is not used to running a lot. I am so proud of her!!!! She is going to do it. I know she can. I can't wait to go outside and have her experience full on how much of a joy distance running can be when it's not on a treadmill. Hopefully the weather will start to cooperate and we can go outside soon. Keep sending good thoughts :) Keep running!!!!

I am ready!!!!

2008-03-03T07:43:00.003-06:00

OK, so today is a new day and starts a new commitment to my running. I have been praying all weekend for God to show me something to make me want to run more. What was that pivotal moment you ask? I looked at my youngest sleeping in her crib and felt that I have to lead by example.

Running is more than just a hobby or something that you just have to do. It is one of my passions in my life and I have to do it. It is my drug of choice. It is where I can go to relieve the stress of my life, reflect on my life and thank God that I woke up. I want my kids to learn to love something that is not material. Running is a cleansing activity that can consume your life, but something that you can involve the whole family.

I want my girls to look up to me as someone that has been following their dreams and be proud. I know a lot of people that pick something that they would like to do, but never make the steps to follow those dreams. I have goals in my running future, that I have to accomplish. They are my goals and I have to work as hard as possible to reach them. As this week goes by, please have me in your thoughts that I will continue to do the things that I want to do. This week is going to be the tough week. I have been running a lot lately, but this is the week that I make the full commitment to "get back on the horse". Here we go. Run Long folks.

Outback Steakhouse :)

2008-03-01T08:45:00.005-06:00

So here I am. Today is Saturday and I had one of the best meals last night at one of my fav restaraunts. The Outback!!!! MMMMMM Actually I have half of my steak left to eat today. That's right I said HALF. I don't really know what I am going to write about today, but I felt compelled to. I am just sitting down stairs with Mini-Me while Red and the wifey sleep. It's cool just to hang out with my kids sometimes. They remind me what it is like to live a simpler life. They have it so easy. As long as they are fed and have some toys to play with, things couldn't get much better. It's awesome to see. I love my girls. They make my world go 'round. I can't wait to see what kind of adults they turn out to be. Maybe that's why I am writing today.

It has really been weighing on me the way that we live our lives today. Our world is run my how many things that we can have. I am trying to follow a stricter life and not worry about the things that I don't have but really see how blessed my life is with the things that I do have. It is just really hard when others that I associate with don't have the same ideals. They want more. Have to have more and will do whatever it takes to get it.

Anyway, the running is going ok. I am still trying to find my motivation right now. I know that I am doing Dam-To-Dam and have a great team assembled that are going to do it as well, but there is not one race/cause out there that is calling my name. I have looked into different charities to run for, but one hasn't stuck out. If you have any suggestions let me know. I would love to hear about it.

Please pray for the owner of my wife's daycare. The building caught fire earlier this week and the community has really gathered around her and the others that work there to help, but it is going to be a long process to get the business running the way that it had been. I think that everyone that works there just needs to know that God is watching over them. Alright. I am going to go upstairs and eat my left over steak. MMMMMMMM Steak, eggs and coffee. Could life get any sweeter? :) Later Gaters

Random Musings

2008-02-26T15:02:00.000-06:00

Well, I have had this page for a while, but have never written anything on it. Soooo, I figured that maybe I would start. I wanted to point out that this is going to be a place for me to talk some talk. I am going to have some deep spiritual conversations (I have recently renewed my relationship with Christ and couldn't be more excited about it), I am going to talk about my lovely family, I am going to talk running (I love it, I love it, I love it) and pretty much anything else that comes up.

I want to call your attention first off to the actual title of this page. You may be wondering, what does this mean. Well, it is one of my favorite verses in the Bible that is not just about running, but how we should live our lives. We should all be conducting ourselves in a way to reach that final prize. I am not here to tell you that you have to believe the same things that I believe, but I hope that you believe in something higher than you. We were all put on this earth for a reason and you should be doing everything you can to live the best way possible. I am not going to say that I am perfect. I am VERY far from it. I am just trying to better every aspect of my life to fill myself with positivity.

I am in a great place in my life. I LOVE my wife. She is one of the greatest human beings ever created. She is my best friend, my love, the mother of 2 of the smartest & cutest girls in the world, and a wonderful person. My girls are the best kids in the world and will only get better.

Like I said in the beginning, I have recently renewed my faith and am truly on fire for what I am learning. The love that I am seeing from my Savior is love that I have never seen. Christ has truly given me a second chance at life.

Anyway, hopefully I will be able to stay more on top of this then I have on past blogging things. I welcome your comments and anything that you would like to add. I hope that you can learn a little more about me. Welcome aboard :)